


Lost Coastlines

by pukeandcry



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Anxiety, Desert Island, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Presumed Dead, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukeandcry/pseuds/pukeandcry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Nick doesn’t know what you’re meant to do when Harry Styles has suddenly come back from the dead.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>It's been a year since Harry and Niall died in a plane crash – only it turns out they didn't, because they've just been rescued from the island they've been stranded on, and Harry is suddenly back in Nick's life, not quite good as new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Coastlines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiddleyoumust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleyoumust/gifts).



> Written for [fiddleyoumust](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleyoumust/pseuds/fiddleyoumust), who wanted Nick and Harry trying to pick up the pieces after Harry and Niall are rescued from a desert island. Thank you for such an intriguing prompt! There were about a million more things I wanted to do with this universe, but I hope this snippet is along the lines of what you were looking for.
> 
> I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one since it turns out there's not really a lot of ways to research "what happens when a really famous person is rescued from a desert island," so I hope it's at least mostly believable on that front. The desert island and rescue part are pretty much entirely secondary and hand-waved away, so this focuses specifically on what happens after that. **Warnings** for presumed death (although it's immediately evident that all major characters are actually alive), anxiety and PTSD / less than ideal handling of trauma, and mentions of a (brief and almost entirely offscreen) Nick/OMC relationship.
> 
> (There's also a rebloggable post on my fic-tumblr [here](http://pukecrypukecry.tumblr.com/post/106535428388/fic-lost-coastlines-by-pukeandcry).)

Nick’s at the gym when he finds out. Not somewhere more appropriate – although perhaps there’s not anywhere particularly _appropriate_ , really – but at the gym. The television above the treadmill he’s half-heartedly jogging on flashes to a breaking news bulletin, and Nick watches it for a moment before he turns off the machine, slowing to a walk and then finally going still. He steps off the treadmill, watches the story ticker flash by again, and then goes into the change room and throws up.

There’s a television on in there, too.

When he’s sure he’s finished being sick, he wipes his mouth, calls for a cab, and goes home.

It’s quiet inside his flat when he gets there, and he puts on the kettle just in the interest of forward momentum before cautiously approaching the television to turn it on, like it’s an animal that might spook. It only takes two flicks on the remote to find the news story again, and Nick sinks heavily to the arm of his sofa, knowing he should stop watching it and unable to do so all the same.

He forgets about the kettle entirely, instead keeping himself busy by turning his phone over and over in his hands, wondering if he should call someone, or turn it off, or chuck it through the glass door to the garden just to hear them both shatter. He doesn’t know what you’re meant to do when Harry Styles has suddenly come back from the dead.

Aimee comes by within the hour, even though Nick hasn’t called her, letting herself in with her key. She knows, clearly; she’s got a gobsmacked expression on her face when she carefully asks if he’s okay.

Nick nearly laughs at that, but it dies in his throat. All he can do is move over an inch, making room for Aimee on the sofa next to him as they watch the news together, the same incomprehensible story on a dreadful loop.

An hour later, Nick hasn’t absorbed all the details. Or any of them, really. He’s still not entirely sure the whole thing isn’t a really shit joke, or a hallucination, but it’s starting to seem less and less likely the more times he watches the news story replay, the same seven or so shots over and over, the same news ticker crawling sluggishly across the bottom of the screen.

All he knows is that up until this morning, as far as he had been concerned, Harry’d been dead for nearly a year. Presumed dead, technically, but for Nick he was just dead, full stop. Nick makes it a point, now, to only think about Harry in the most basic capacities: Harry Styles, singer, right-handed, dead. Nick especially doesn’t think about the _way_ Harry’d died, or Niall, or the private plane with, apparently, one faulty engine going down over the sea during a flight back from Australia. That’s all background noise, and it hadn’t really mattered, when you got down to it. The only important bit was Harry being dead, and not coming back to Nick or anyone else, not ever.

Except now, impossibly, he has.

Niall too. There was an island, apparently, and a fishing boat, and a rescue, and a lot of other bits Nick can’t think about too much because _Harry is alive_ , and he’s been dead for a year, and it all makes his head spin so much he’s sick again.

Aimee rubs his back while he vomits.

-

At first Nick doesn’t call because Harry and Niall are both in hospital, obviously. Nick’s not sure if anything in particular is _wrong_ with them, injury and illness-wise, or if it’s just general policy – if there even is a policy for this sort of thing. But they’re both hospitalized for a fortnight or so, which Nick only knows because of the news, again, and he also knows that no one ought to be the tosser bothering someone while they’re laid up in an uncomfortable hospital bed, regardless of the circumstances. Harry’s got enough to deal with without a call from Nick on top of everything.

Then Nick doesn’t call because at the end of the second week Harry’s released from hospital, apparently at least well enough to carry on convalescing at his mum’s. The family’s put out a statement asking for privacy, as one would expect, which Nick understands in the only way he understands much of anything lately: in an oblique, detached sort of way. It’s probably a big transition, going from living on a bloody island for a year while the whole world thinks you’re dead to being home again. Nick reckons if it was the other way around, he wouldn’t want people ringing him up much either.

So he just – doesn’t call. They all need their time to get acclimated, probably.

Then it just stays easier not to call. The longer he leaves it, the more it feels like a habit. Anyway, he can’t imagine what he might say. He doesn’t think there are the right words.

-

Anne’s the one who calls him up, in the end. Nick had only ever managed to send a card, a bit after Harry’d got out of the hospital, but even that had taken nearly an hour and two frantic phone calls to Aimee, because it turns out they don’t really make a “Glad you’re not dead” type of card. Obviously. Nick had gone with a generic “thinking of you” one in the end; he’d addressed it to the whole family, and then felt like a tit for it, afterwards.

It’s just – after Harry’s plane had crashed, Nick hadn’t been very good about much of anything, and that included staying in touch with Anne or Gemma. That makes him sound shit, but maybe he had been. He loved them, of course, but – but it was too much. Gemma looked so much like Harry, for one, and Nick couldn’t really stomach it, it’d turned out. Any of it. He’d hugged them both at the memorial service they’d held a month after the search was called off, shook Robin and Des’ hands, and then… that had been it.

Everyone had said he’d needed to start moving on, anyway.

So when Anne’s number pops up on his phone just after five on a Sunday evening, two weeks or so after Harry comes home from hospital, Nick’s heart sinks. Anne’s always been so kind to him, but that nearly makes it worse; he’d avoided her because it was too hard for him to do anything else but, when you get down to it, and seeing her name flashing on his phone now – replete with a picture of her and Harry from her wedding smiling happily together, _Jesus_ – makes him feel exactly as shit as he is. It’s almost like being in primary school again, like he’s been caught out doing something he shouldn’t have and is about to be scolded for it. To be fair, he probably _does_ deserve to be scolded, but for a moment he thinks about letting it ring out anyway just so he can avoid the sensation of being eight and sat at his mum’s kitchen table while she looks at him with disappointment, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

He answers, though. He reckons he’s earned whatever’s coming.

“Hiya,” he says when he picks up, and then grimaces at himself.

“Nick,” Anne says. Her voice is tired, but kind. It almost feels worse, somehow, that she doesn’t sound like she’s going to give Nick the dressing down she ought to. “How are you, love?”

“Oh, you know,” he says evasively. “Um. As well as expected, I guess?” He’s sitting at his kitchen table, and suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his body. The television’s on in the other room, only he can’t make out the words coming from it; there’s a roast in the oven, and James will be round in an hour or so, and Nick’s meant to prepare for an interview next week after they eat. All of that suddenly feels bloated and strangely distant, though, now that he’s hearing Anne’s voice for the first time in months – like it’s inappropriate of the world to have gone on turning in light of everything. Nick feels guilty by association, complicit in it.

“How are _you_ , though?” he asks. “Been thinking of you. All of you, I mean.”

She laughs, although just barely. “Question of the year, isn’t it? Dunno. Happy. Confused. Exhausted, mostly.”

“I can imagine,” Nick says, even though he really can’t.

“It’s just… you never expect this, d’you?” she asks hoarsely. “Any of it, I mean, but… _this_.”

“It’s – it’s mad,” Nick says.

Anne laughs again, this time a bit more clearly. “D’you know, you’re the first person to actually say that?” Nick blushes, but before he can apologize she carries on. “Everyone else keeps saying it’s a _miracle_ , and it probably is, but. It really is mad, isn’t it? Only nobody wants to say.”

Nick feels a strange thickness in his stomach then, and for the life of him, can’t think of anything else to say.

“Is – is he well?” he asks finally. “Settling in?”

Anne exhales. “Dunno. Suppose so. I mean, he’s _home_ , and that’s good, right? Not stuck in that awful hospital, at least. I think none of us really know what to do, or what’s normal. But he’s home.”

Nick hums in agreement.

“He’s asking after you,” she says gently after a moment, and Nick’s heart stutters.

“He is?” It comes out as a squeak.

“He is,” Anne confirms. “Once in a while. Wants to know what you’re doing, if you’re well…” She pauses, and Nick braces himself. “I think he’d like it if you came to see him,” she says tentatively. “Only if you’re comfortable, of course. I know you’re busy, and I know it’s… well. I know it’s pretty unusual circumstances.” She says it so sympathetically that Nick can’t help but hate himself, just for an instant – it takes a special sort of arsehole to have behaved so badly that _Anne’s_ the one putting on her comforting voice for _him_ in this situation. “But he’s…” She trails off, and Nick can hear the doubt in her voice before she reconsiders that sentence. “I think it would make him happy. You’re the one he’s asking after the most.”

“Did he say?” Nick asks, wrapping his fingers around the edge of the table. They turn white with how hard he grips it. “That he wants me to visit? I don’t – I don’t want to impose, only,” he says. “Of course I’ll come if he wants me to, I mean, just…”

“You don’t want to make him uncomfortable,” Anne finishes for him. “I know, and you’re a love to worry about it. It seems like… it seems like everyone else in the world just wants to gawk at him, nearly.” Her voice goes sharp, and it _hurts_ Nick, thinking about Harry being turned into a spectacle on top of everything else. “But you would really make him happy, I think.”

“Are you sure?” Somewhere off in the kitchen the timer for the roast goes, but it barely registers.

“I am,” she says. “You wouldn’t need to stay long, obviously, I’d feel sick to impose on you–”

“I’ll come,” Nick says. He can’t listen to her be so kind and accommodating for another second, suddenly. “Of course, Anne. Anything you want. Just, like… can you ask him, first? If it’s alright?”

“I will,” she promises, relief washing through her voice like Nick’s done something heroic.

It’s not enough, of course. He needs to actually follow through, to start with, to _go_ ; he needs to be better and to be the type of friend Harry deserves, but for the first time in ages Nick thinks he’s at least put himself in the right direction.

“He’ll want you to, though, I’m sure of it. I think he only didn’t want to ask.”

Nick swallows heavily.

“When should I come, then?” he asks. “Assuming he says it’s okay, I mean, but–”

“Whenever,” Anne says. “Honestly, whenever you like. He’s got a few doctor’s appointments, but we can work around those. If you just wanted to do a weekend, so you don’t have to miss the show–”

“Don’t worry about that,” he says, finally unclenching his hand from the edge of the table. He has to flex his knuckles several times to get the locked-up feeling to start to dissipate. “I’ll be on a train as soon as he says he wants me to be.”

-

Aimee thinks he’s shouldn’t go, Nick can tell. She’s got a sour expression on her face, and she won’t help him fold anything as he tries to pack, even if maybe that’s not too unusual. But the tight purse of her lips is, and she keeps sighing through her nose whenever she looks at him. Also, she’s said as much – several times. Nick appreciates that she doesn’t tiptoe around telling him when he’s being an idiot, normally, but right now he could really use her on his side.

“Who’s covering for you?” she asks for the thousandth time, probably.

“Gavin,” Nick says, stuffing two identical t-shirts into his bag. “Still Gavin. Same as last time I said.”

Aimee does her nose-sigh again. Nick thinks about chucking a sock at her, but just flexes his hands instead.

“I know you’re–” she starts, and then stops, trying again. “And I get it. But I just want to say again one more time that I think this is a bad idea.”

“Okay,” Nick says. “Noted.”

Aimee rearranges her legs underneath her, shifting Pig on her lap from where they’re sat together in the armchair in the corner of Nick’s bedroom.

Nick knows what she’s going to say before she even says it, because he’s heard it before. That Nick was _scary_ after everything happened the first time; that’s the word she kept using, _scary_ , because he’d taken ages off work and wouldn’t answer his phone and kept the chain on the front door so no one could come around even with a key, and apparently that had been unlike him to the point of raising very serious concerns among his friends that he’d been about to off himself or something. Which he hadn’t been, for the record. He just hadn’t been able to face anything else, and really, that should be allowed. Nick thinks a person should probably be allowed to react in an unusual way in turn to the very unusual act of your best friend – your whatever more to him than that Harry had been, even – dying without all the accompanying judgments; he knows they’re good intentioned, but they’d nearly driven him mad anyway.

And apparently since he’d been _scary_ , and then finally stopped being scary and started venturing out in the light of day and going to work again and seeing James, eventually, his mates had all decided he was better and that he’d “moved on,” whatever the fuck that means. And now the consensus seems to be that somehow going to see Harry is going to – move him _back_ , or something, he doesn’t fucking know. Whatever the opposite of moving on is. Send him back to the scary place.

He appreciates the concern, in an oblique sort of way, but if Harry’s asking for him, he sure as fuck isn’t going to listen to it, any of it all. End of discussion.

“You want me to drive you to the station?” Aimee asks eventually once his bag is packed. She doesn’t sound like she approves any more than she did before, but she’s at least not trying to talk him out of it anymore, and Nick appreciates that.

He still shakes his head, swiping his over-long hair out of his eyes when it flops down.

“Thanks, but I’ve got a cab coming.” He doesn’t, but he will, soon, once he calls.

Aimee takes Pig, looping her leash around her wrist twice, and hugs Nick very, very fiercely before she leaves. Then it’s just Nick, waiting in the flat alone until he hears the cab honking outside. They get stuck in traffic, but he makes his train anyway.

-

He arrives around midday, and takes another cab from the station to Anne’s house. He’s been there before, of course, but it all seems weirdly unfamiliar as the cab drives on, the radio inexplicably playing a Christmas carol even though it’s well into March.

There’s a moment on the front step when he thinks hysterically, _I can’t do this_. The last time he’d been here it’d been – well. It’d been very different. There’s a dusting of snow on the stairs, now, and the house looks closed-up and still, and for an instant Nick thinks he won’t be able to ring the bell, that he’ll have to dash down the road after the cab and retreat home and do several of his mindful breathing exercises he’s learned in the last year just to stop his heart beating so hard.

But he rings, because he has to, and then Anne is opening the door, pulling him inside and wrapping her arms around him. He lets his bag drop on the floor and hugs her back.

“Thank you for coming,” she murmurs into his ear. When she pulls back, she’s wiping conspicuously at her eyes, and Nick looks away politely, swallowing hard.

“Of course,” he says, like he wasn’t near to bailing out thirty seconds ago. He toes his shoes off and leaves them beside the front door, following Anne through to the kitchen.

She’s only seconds ahead of him but she’s already pouring his coffee by the time he joins her. She must’ve had it waiting – she must’ve remembered he prefers it to tea. It makes him feel like shit all over again.

He knows – he _knows_ that Harry is here, somewhere, but the house is silent. He sits with Anne at the table and she asks after the show and he asks after Robin and they don’t mention the elephant in the room at all except in how her eyes flick towards the stairs every few moments.

“He’s resting,” she finally explains, and Nick nods, unsure what that really means.

“They boys all visited, last week,” she says. Her face looks so tired. “Not all at once, because they didn’t want to overwhelm him, but they all stayed down the road at the inn and came round in the day in turns. Liam and Zayn, together, and Louis stayed on after them. He ended up staying in Harry’s room for two days, actually. Wouldn’t leave his side.”

“That’s good,” Nick says, sipping his coffee even though it’s still scalding. He’s not sure what he’s meant to do with that information, but maybe Anne just needs to say it.

“They’re going to visit Niall, next. He’s home as well, but he was back in hospital for a day, I think, so they wanted to give him a bit of extra time to recover.”

Nick nods again, feeling like one of those things you see on cabby’s dashboards – them dogs with their heads on a spring that just nod uselessly in all circumstances.

“And he was alright?” Nick asks. “When they visited?”

Anne lets out a breath. “I think so. He’s so tired, still, and he’s – well. He’s not well.” It sounds like it’s costing her an awful lot to admit it. “He’s not injured, I mean, aside from being undernourished, and he’s eating alright now, but… I don’t know. I think he’s trying _so_ hard to be alright, like if he pretends nothing’s happened then it hasn’t.”

She twists her coffee around in her hands; Nick’s chest feels small and too tight.

“Maybe that’s good,” he says, wincing at how stupid he sounds. “I mean, that he wants to be well.”

“Maybe,” Anne says, not sounding convinced. Nick isn’t either, frankly. “I just – He won’t tell us about it at all, any of it. He won’t talk about anything, really. He’s got a therapist, and apparently all he’ll tell her is that he’s ‘fine.’ _Fine_. And I don’t mean to sound like I _want_ him to be unwell, of course, but. He shouldn’t be fine, right? Not yet.”

She sounds like she’s genuinely asking Nick, and he hasn’t got any idea. He barely knows what to do with his hands at the moment.

Anne sighs. “His nightmares seem to have stopped, at least.”

Nick must blanch, because suddenly she’s waving it off, rising from the table and starting to clean up the kitchen. “Anyway, I’m just being silly, I suppose. It should be enough that he’s here.”

Nick thinks about hugging her, because she seems so near to flying apart at the seams, but can’t quite manage to do it.

“If you want to stay at a hotel I know there are rooms,” she says, putting on a new, softly efficient voice. “But you can always stay here, of course.”

“Won’t I be in the way?” he asks, bringing over his coffee mug for her to rinse out. She smiles at him.

“Of course not, Nick. You know you’re always welcome here, right? Always.”

He doesn’t know if he’s imagining a twinge of reproach in her voice – probably. It still doesn’t stop him hating himself for how easily he disappeared when it got to be too hard.

“I’ll stay here, then,” he says. “So long as you’re sure.”

He doesn’t know if it makes up for it all, even just a bit, but Anne smiles at him again, so maybe it does.

-

It’s nearly an hour before either of them move to go upstairs; it’s like they’re both putting it off, distracting themselves with sandwiches and another cup of coffee. Eventually, though, Anne suggests he settle into the spare room, and offers to go check on Harry, see if he’s awake.

Nick follows her upstairs, but turns right when she carries on towards the door he knows is Harry’s. Nick’s heart is suddenly beating too fast; _Harry_ is behind that door, _Harry_ , real alive Harry, and suddenly it’s hard for Nick to catch his breath. He’s not sure he can believe it, is the thing, and he’s terrified to linger a moment longer and find out that it’s all been a dream, that people don’t come back from the dead after all and that all that’s behind the closed door is more quiet and empty space.

Anne smiles at him gently, then taps her knuckles on Harry’s door. Nick hurries into the spare room and shuts his door behind him before he can wait for the answer.

Twenty minutes later his bag is open but not unpacked, because he’s not sure if he _should_ unpack. He’d lined his spare pairs of shoes up at the foot of the guest bed, and then sat down on the end of it, twisting his phone around in his hands. He goes to the toilet down the hall, eventually, and when he gets back Anne is coming out of Harry’s room.

“He’s awake, if you’d like to go in,” she says softly, and then retreats downstairs.

It’s a very long moment before Nick can nudge the half-shut door to Harry’s room open. When he manages, his heart is beating so loudly he thinks the whole house must be able to hear it.

When he looks, there’s Harry.

He’s propped up in bed among a small mountain of cushions and pillows. His hair’s been newly cut, and it’s shorter than Nick’s ever seen it. Harry looks tired, and gaunt around the face. His jumper is slipping down one thin shoulder and he looks – not emaciated, but whittled down, like he takes up much less space than he used to.

His face seems exhausted, but he still blinks and smiles when he sees Nick standing there like a tit in the doorway.

“Jesus,” Harry says quietly, smiling in that tired sort of way, his voice a bit hoarse. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Nick can’t help the raw, wounded noise that comes out of him, then. It’s all he can do to grab onto the door frame and not buckle at the knees, because Harry is _there_ , and he was _dead_. He might as _well_ be a ghost. Fuck. Nick thinks he might pass out.

Harry pushes himself up a bit straighter in bed, holding his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, hey. It was just a joke,” he says, trying to keep his smile in place. It comes out uneven. His blankets are tangled around his legs, and Nick can already tell they look too thin even before Harry pats the duvet next to him, pulling it tighter over his skinny thighs. “Come over here, then.”

Nick goes, though he’s not sure how. His feet don’t feel connected to the rest of him. The room is so quiet, only the low sounds of the television murmuring, a car outside, Harry’s breathing as Nick sits carefully next to him on the bed.

He tells himself not to cry, because he’s meant to be happy, only he can’t stop it, pressing the heel of his hands to his eyes that are traitorously wet.

“Fuck,” he says. “Sorry. God, you’re…” He can’t make a full sentence out of the words, though.

“You came,” Harry says quietly. He’s still smiling, and it looks familiar and foreign all at once. His eyes look wider, more skittish.

“Of course,” Nick says thickly, sniffling. “I’m… I wanted to earlier, but I didn’t want to, like. Thought you would want space, y’know? Fuck, I’m sorry. I should’ve called.”

Harry just shakes his head. His hair barely moves, it’s so short. Nick remembers when it would’ve swished around his head in wild ringlets.

“Glad you’re here now,” Harry says, and opens his arms. Nick leans into them instinctively, as gently as he can, feeling like some critical support structure in his abdomen has disappeared, leaving him weak and limp. Harry ends up petting his hair and making shushing sounds while Nick cries into his shirt; it feels very backwards, and it takes a long while before Nick gets himself under control.

They don’t speak much after that, just settle into Harry’s bed, this time with Nick’s arms around Harry’s shoulders. He was right – Harry’s far too thin, all sharp points that feel unbearably fragile.

The television is set on the weather report, looping continuously. It’s going to rain in the Midlands all week, but down south is warmer and dry.

“You can ask,” Harry says eventually, in a very soft voice. “If you want. To know what it was like?”

Nick doesn’t mean to, but he tenses. He remembers what Anne said – that he won’t talk to any of them about it. About what he’d gone through.

“D’you want to talk about it?” Nick asks.

Harry shakes his head. “Not really. But if you wanted to know.”

Nick tugs him closer. “Don’t need to, then. You’re here, right? That’s enough.”

Harry seems to accept that, and they watch the weather report in silence until it cuts away to a commercial for washing up liquid.

“Have the adverts always been this loud?” Harry asks him quietly, sounding so unsure it nearly breaks Nick’s heart.

“I think so,” he says, pulling Harry closer and wanting to cry again.

-

Harry dozes off, eventually, not managing to seem like he’s at rest even then. His brow is furrowed and he seems tense and coiled. Nick brushes his newly-short hair with his hand a bit, the grain of it foreign under his hands, and then slips off the bed, shutting the door so softly behind him that it doesn’t make a noise.

When he comes downstairs he catches sight of Gemma’s hair through the back window where she’s perched on a low stone wall in the garden, and lets himself out to join her, crouching down to sit by her side. She’s smoking a cigarette and making herself small against the cold, the sleeves of her oversized jumper pulled down taut over her curled fists.

“Grimmy,” she says, sounding startled. “Didn’t realize you’d arrived.”

“About an hour ago,” he says, and nods at her cigarette. “Got another of those?”

She glances at it guiltily, but she must have other concerns besides a furtive smoke at the moment, because she just nods and hands him the pack. They sit in quiet as they smoke, Gemma frowning out over the back garden.

“Did you see him yet?” she asks eventually.

“Yeah,” he says, exhaling heavily. He doesn’t want her to ask how Harry’d seemed; he thinks he doesn't have it in him to lie and say _very well_ , but the thought of saying out loud just how delicate and half-there Harry’d seemed makes Nick feel a bit sick. “He made a joke, when I went in,” Nick settles on. “Said, like, ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’”

He’d meant it to be lighthearted, proof that Harry’s in good spirits, but saying it out loud only makes it sound even more macabre that he’d remembered it; he instantly wishes he could take it back.

Gemma must agree, because she blanches. “I’m worried about him,” she says bluntly. “He just. Makes jokes, and says he’s fine. Won’t say _anything_. And mum’s trying to pretend like it’s all right, even though I know she can tell it isn’t. _Fuck._ ”

Nick doesn’t know what to say, so he lights another of Gemma’s cigarettes.

When he glances over, her eyes are wet, but she has a steely, resolved expression about her. “If I say something awful, will you promise not to judge me?”

“Of course,” he promises, meaning it.

“It was almost better when I thought he was dead,” she whispers. “Then – then I knew, y’know? We were all so sure – because how couldn’t he be, right? Only it turns out he wasn’t, and he’s my baby _brother_ , Nick, and he’s gone through all this and I don’t know what any of it is, so I can’t stop thinking about it. What he’s been through. How awful it might’ve been. _Must’ve_ been. _Fuck_ ,” she says again.

Nick doesn’t know what to say, so he offers her his hand, and she grips onto it so tightly that he feels the crescents of her nails biting into the skin beneath his knuckles. He wants her to hold even tighter, because it feels like at least one small point he can anchor himself to – the fierce grip of her hand. They stay there like that until the sun dips low in the sky and all her cigarettes are stubbed out in one of Anne’s potted plants.

-

Dinner is strange and uncomfortable, mostly because everyone’s doing their best to pretend it isn’t. Anne’s made a roast, and the nice serviettes and china are out. At Anne’s suggestion, Nick goes to wake Harry up just before the meal is ready, and it takes him almost twenty minutes to manage; Harry looks peaceful enough in his sleep that Nick doesn’t think he can stand to do it. And when he finally goes to try, he starts to think about what if he _can’t_ , what if Harry really has slipped away from him this time, and no matter how hard Nick shakes his shoulder he won’t wake up, and then Nick _really_ can’t, because it might be completely illogical, given the slow rise of Harry’s chest as he breathes shallowly in his sleep, but it still feels possible all the same; it’d be too much for Nick, losing him a second time.

He hesitates for so long that Harry wakes on his own, eventually, blinking up at Nick with an expression he can’t read. “Dinner’s ready,” Nick tells him softly, and Harry nods.

Nick’s not sure if Harry _has_ to lean on his shoulder as they walk slowly down the stairs and into the dining room, or if he just wants to, but he feels frail and a bit unstable either way.

The rest of the family is waiting when they get there, a spot left for Harry at the head of the table. Someone’s lit candles.

Anne and Robin try so hard, the whole meal, try _so_ bloody hard to get the tone right – that they’re a happy, normal family, without anything hanging conspicuously above them. Anne laughs too loudly when Robin tells a barely humorous story from work, and Gemma keeps scampering back into the kitchen for salt and a glass of water and butter knife and about six other things Nick loses track of.

Harry sits at the head of the table, silent through the whole thing. Nick can’t help watching to see if he eats; he does, mostly, though at the end he starts to sigh and push his sprouts around the plate.

“Can I be excused?” Harry asks eventually, smiling blandly. It’s the first thing he’s said the entire meal, and he sounds so tired that no one protests when he starts to shove his chair back without waiting for an answer.

Nick helps Anne clear the table after Harry disappears upstairs again, but leaves her be when he realizes she’s washing the same serving dish over and over, rinsing it and soaping it again with a tight expression on her face. He counts three times she goes at it, even though it’s already clean, and then tiptoes upstairs to give her some peace.

He peers into Harry’s bedroom, but he’s fast asleep again, his face lit up by the blue light of his perpetually on television.

Nick sleeps in the guest room, fitfully, and dreams of something vague and unpleasant that he forgets by the next morning.

-

Nick hadn’t booked a return ticket when he’d come, but his general plan is to stay out the week. He’s not sure if his presence is really helping, but he tries, coaxing Harry to get out of bed when he’s not too tired. They help Anne make a tray of biscuits one afternoon, even though Harry starts to frown halfway through mixing the eggs and the butter and Nick can’t sort out why. They sit in the garden for a bit too, and Harry picks through the cigarette butts Nick and Gemma had left in the planter, but doesn’t ask about them. He’s quiet, mostly, but when he notices Nick watching he always makes it a point to smile, sometimes following it up with a half-hearted joke. Nick tries to laugh at them.

The third afternoon Nick’s there, Harry shouts at Gemma when she offers to make a cup of tea for him when they’re all in the kitchen together. It shocks the three of them quiet, Nick especially, because he’s _never_ heard Harry shout at Gemma. She looks like she might cry, when he does, and Nick thinks Harry’s startled himself as well; he looks like he’s thinking about taking it back. He doesn’t, though, instead taking the mug none too gently from her hands. 

“I can _do_ it,” he huffs as he goes to the kettle, Gemma standing stock still in the middle of the room like a statue.

When his tea is done, Harry sits at the table across from Nick. He must have an expression on his face because Harry asks, “What?” in a defensive voice. Gemma makes a choking sound and finally moves, disappearing from the kitchen and up the stairs. Harry doesn’t say anything after that until he and Nick go upstairs to his bedroom and Harry asks what he wants to watch on television.

“I don’t know,” Nick says hoarsely; he hesitates before he opens his arm, but Harry snuggles into it, and then they’re quiet again.

-

“I need a bath,” Harry tells him during another television binge the next afternoon. He’s finally switched it over from the weather report, and now it’s on an infomercial about a salad spinner. “I smell like shit.”

“Do not,” Nick says, trying for something light and genial. “Smell of roses, you do.”

Harry twists his face up skeptically. “Doubt it,” he says. Something unhappy passes over his face, but he shakes it off after a moment. “D’you – would you maybe sit outside the door while I have a bath?” He looks very young and fragile, like it’s costing him greatly to ask and he figures Nick will say no. “You don’t have to, I mean, it’s just – the company is nice.” He chews the edge of his thumb.

“‘Course,” Nick says, resisting the urge to wrap him up in a hug; he thinks Harry might not like that, right now, not after just having admitted he needs something – needs _help_. So instead they get up and walk silently to the toilet together, Nick waiting while Harry adjusts the flow of the water and puts in the stopper. He thumbs the hem of his jumper, starting to pull it up; Nick catches an eyeful of his too-sharp hipbones before Harry pauses, looking at Nick expectantly, and Nick mentally swears, excusing himself hastily into the hall where he sits with his back against the wall beside the open door, pulling out his phone to do something with his hands.

“Tisty-tosty or butterball?” Harry calls over the sound of the tub filling.

“What?” Nick asks.

“Those are the, um. The bath things Gemma has. The fizzy ones. One’s called tisty-tosty and the other’s called butterball. Which one?”

Nick blinks, completely unsure what to do. Something about Harry asking what bath product to use is so intrinsically disorienting that Nick almost feels like he’s had the floor drop out from under him. Harry was _dead,_ and now he’s asking Nick about bubble bath. “What do they smell like?” Nick asks eventually. The tap shuts off as he’s speaking, so he winds up shouting the last half of the sentence unnecessarily.

“Tisty-tosty is roses, I think,” Harry reports slowly. “The butter one smells like biscuits.”

“Go with that one, then,” Nick says. “The biscuits one.”

He doesn’t know if Harry listens, but he doesn’t catch the smell of roses drifting out on the warm steam that’s coming from the open door, either. Harry’s slow movements make quiet splashing sounds in the water, and Nick listens to them as closely as if his life depended on it.

-

On Thursday, James texts while Harry and Nick are curled up on the lounge sofa. They’ve upgraded from the weather report to infomercials to an old Will Ferrell movie, but Nick has no idea what’s happening in it; he’s too focused on the rare breathy laughs Harry lets out, only a few, barely more than a cough.

James wants to know how it’s going, and when Nick will be back. He tells him _still Sunday_ , and then doesn’t bother answering any of the follow-ups about James’ flatmates birthday party the next week and whether he should get a new pair of brogues.

“Who’s James?” Harry asks quietly from Nick’s side, not bothering to disguise the fact that he’s reading Nick’s messages.

“Oh,” Nick says, suddenly uncomfortable. “He’s my, um–”

“Your boyfriend?” Harry supplies quietly.

“Suppose so, yeah,” Nick says, swallowing hard. It’s weird; he’s gotten over the sweaty feeling he used to get whenever he’d used the word _boyfriend_ , mostly, but for some reason it feels wrong to be saying it to Harry.

“How long’ve you been seeing him?” It feels like uneven ground, but Harry mostly sounds curious; still cautious and quiet, but that much isn’t new.

“Four months, I think? About.” Nick shrugs.

“What’s he like?”

Nick shrugs again; he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Nice. He’s in marketing. Tall.”

Harry’s quiet for a long moment, twisting a corner of the blanket that’s wrapped over his lap between his thumb and index finger. “It’s funny,” he says eventually. “Wasn’t sure you’d ever settle down.”

“Harry,” Nick says quietly. He feels like he ought to apologize.

“No, I mean,” Harry says. “It’s… it’s good. I’m happy. You and I were…”

Nick can think of a few ways to describe what the two of them were, if he lets himself – poorly timed, for instance, and a bit frantic, and the sort of thing he’d always thought… well. It’s not important now, what he’d thought.

He doesn’t want to say any of it, so he just waits for Harry to finish his sentence. He never does, though, and eventually his breath evens out into a steady pace, asleep again. Nick cards his hand through his hair, still not used to how short it is. His phone buzzes again, but he ignores it entirely.

-

The next day, Nick comes out of the shower to hear Harry speaking in hushed but animated tones behind his closed bedroom door.

Nick doesn’t mean to eavesdrop; it just makes him pause, because Harry barely speaks to _anyone_. There’s no audible response to his low voice, which makes Nick suspect he’s on the phone.

He’s going to move away, only he hears his own name, eventually, and then James’, and then finally – apparently answering the question of who Harry’s speaking to – Niall’s. Harry’s voice sounds raw and sad and broke open, all the emotion Nick had been expecting and hasn’t found yet. It’s nearly enough to break his heart, even without being able to hear most of Harry’s words, only catching their tone, and eventually he has to step away, retreat into the guest room and change his clothes, because it’s sitting like a shard in his chest; knowing for sure, then, that Harry’s only pretending to be alright.

The only thing that comforts Nick even a bit is the fact that Harry will to speak to Niall, at least, that he has someone who he doesn’t think he has to pretend to be alright with. It’s not much at all, but it’s something.

-

Harry waits until the table has been cleared after lunch midday on Sunday to make his announcement, and when he does, it’s like a bomb has hit.

“Absolutely not,” Anne says. Her fork has clattered to the edge of her plate, dripping spag bol onto the tabletop, but she doesn’t move to retrieve it. “Out of the question.”

“You’ve just gotten out of the bloody hospital,” Gemma adds, sounding horrified.

Harry doesn’t move or even shrug, just watches them passively until they wear themselves out protesting in turn. When there’s a pause, he interrupts.

“It’s not up to you, though,” he says calmly. “I want to go back to London. I want to go stay in my house. So I’m going to.”

Anne gapes at him, but must recognize the futility of arguing; he’s clearly made up his mind. “Well,” she says, struggling to find something to say. “Well. I’ll go with you, then. We all can.”

“No,” Harry says calmly. “I’m fine, mum. I can take care of myself.”

“You certainly can’t,” Gemma protests sharply. She has a look like she’ll bodily restrain Harry from leaving if she has to.

“Then Nick will stay with me,” Harry says simply, shrugging his shoulders. 

Anne goggles at him a bit. “Nick?” she asks, like he’s in on this plan instead of hearing it for the first time, his mouth going dry as he tries to follow it.

“I mean – I didn’t know…” He turns from Anne to Harry, because it’s _Harry_ he should be saying this to. “I didn’t know you wanted to?” he says gently.

“I do,” Harry says. There’s something pleading in his eyes, now, that he’s only letting Nick see, and that seals it, even if Nick can’t fathom how it’s a good idea at all. Harry was dead for a year; how’s Nick meant to say no to him?

“Well,” Nick says, folding his napkin in his lap. “I mean. If that’s what you want, then yes, of course.”

It’s funny how little thought it takes, and how much he means it.

Anne lets out a heavy, unhappy breath, like he’s betrayed her by not protesting. “Nick, love, we can’t expect you to just drop everything–”

He interrupts her, though, because he can see Harry’s shoulders going up towards his ears tensely, his whole body trying to shrink up on itself, and Nick wants to stop that however he can.

“It’s fine, Anne, honestly,” he promises. “I can stay with him at his, if he wants?” He aims the question at Harry, who nods so eagerly that Nick can’t think of any other possibility; of course he’ll stay at Harry’s.

“It’ll be fine,” Harry says quietly. “See?”

None of the others agree, clearly, but neither can they manage to protest again in the face of Harry’s determination.

So it’s decided.

-

They call for a car rather than take the train; it’d be far too mad in normal circumstances anyway, taking the train with Harry, and these circumstances are about as far from normal as possible.

In the back seat, Nick calls Finchy, and arranges for at least another week off from the show. Gavin and Dev will split up covering for him. It’ll be a headache, probably, and maybe he’s ruining his career by dropping everything for weeks at a time with barely an explanation, but he finds he doesn’t care so much. He thinks this probably counts as “a personal emergency,” anyway. That’s all he’d said it was.

When they arrive in London the car idles outside Nick’s flat while he hastily shoves more clean clothes into a second bag, sorts quickly through the pile of mail that’s accumulated, and then scampers back to the car. Harry’s waiting right where Nick left him, forehead tipped against the tinted glass of the window, breathing shallowly. All in all, it takes Nick under five minutes.

They stop to fetch Pig from Aimee’s next, although Nick doesn’t fill her in on the fairly major piece of information that he’s not exactly going _home_ yet, nor is he alone; Harry stays in the car again, which is fine, as Nick isn’t quite ready to explain it all, not to Aimee or anyone. He just wants his dog. He doesn't want to talk to Aimee and have her frown and tell him what a shit idea it is, going to stay with Harry, and he doesn’t want to explain to Finchy why he needs more time, and he doesn’t want to talk to _anyone_. He just wants to get Harry home.

When they’re nearly to Harry’s, Pig crawls out of Nick’s lap and across the seat of the car, sniffing at Harry’s hand curiously. He blinks, unsure, but then turns it palm up, letting her lick at it.

“Hello,” he says to her, serious and tentative. It’s the first thing Harry’s said for most of the drive, actually, and something about it tears Nick’s heart apart and puts it back together at the same time, especially when Pig _whuffs_ in a way that sounds approving, and settles her head on Harry’s thigh.

Harry doesn’t say anything else, but when they pull through the gates of his house, he turns to Nick, smiles nervously, and, in a near whisper, says “Thank you.”

-

If Nick thinks that Harry’s going to open up to him more now that they’re settled somewhere just the two of them, where Harry will maybe feel safe to admit that he’s a bit raw and tender and sharp-edged instead of spitting out the word ‘fine’ about a hundred times a day, he’s immensely wrong. 

It’s alright, at first, because Nick keeps busy. The house has had a caretaker in – Anne and Robin hadn’t wanted to sell it – but it still feels closed up. They need groceries, and Nick orders some in so neither of them have to go out again. Then he opens up the rooms that had been shut, airs out bedclothes, even tests the water in the showers to make sure the pipes are running properly, which they are. He makes omelets for dinner once the groceries turn up, and Harry sits in the kitchen like a ghost, silent, watching Nick cook and then sit down to eat without saying anything at all. He eats his omelet without protest, telling Nick it tastes good, and that he feels fine, and that he’ll maybe have a paracetamol for the slight headache he’s got but other than that he’s lovely and he feels fine, smiling like everything’s normal all the while.

He locks his bedroom door when he goes to bed at half nine. Nick knows because he can’t help but test the handle on his way past the landing as he goes to the guest room he’d picked for himself. It sticks shut. Inside, he can hear Harry rustling around, but if he knows Nick’s out there, lurking in the hallway, worry running all through his body, Harry doesn’t say anything. Eventually the light snaps off, the gap under the door going dim, and Nick lumbers away to the guest room, trying to keep his footsteps light.

-

Harry’s awake before him the next day, already banging around downstairs by the time Nick dresses and comes down.

“Hi,” Harry says, trying to smile cheerfully when Nick pads into the kitchen. “D’you want toast? I can do toast for you.”

One side of his hair is stuck up all funny; his pyjama pants are sliding down his hip, even though they look new and barely worn. They’re still too big. He’s in another jumper, also too big, and Nick realizes he hasn’t really seen Harry in _anything_ that isn’t oversized yet. He can’t help but wonder if it’s the clothes that are making Harry seem so thin and insubstantial, or if it’d be worse in something that fits.

“I can do that,” Nick says gently, moving across the kitchen to take the bread bag from where Harry’s twisting it around unconsciously in his hands like a nervous tic. Harry snatches it away, though, moving more quickly than Nick’s seen from him yet.

“ _No_ ,” Harry says. It comes out sharp, but then he makes an effort to smooth out his expression, his voice, and smiles blandly. “I mean, let me. You made dinner last night. It’s fair, right?”

He’s holding himself funny, all stiff in the spine. Nick doesn’t think he can argue; he just nods mutely.

“So what should we do today?” Harry asks while he waits for the bread to brown, smiling unevenly, like they’re discussing plans for a spare afternoon. Like maybe they’ll just go out and grab brunch and wander in and out of shops for a few hours like it’s 2012. It makes Nick a bit sick in the stomach, and the lurch of the toaster going startles him.

“Whatever you like,” he says softly to the plate of toast that Harry bungs down in front of him. “Whatever you like.”

-

The one concession Harry’d made to his mum before leaving is that he’d see a therapist in London. His first appointment is the second day they’re back, a Tuesday, and Nick offers to drive him there but Harry just blinks and explains that the therapist is coming to the house. At half past ten, a blonde woman in her mid-forties arrives, and she and Harry shut themselves in the office in the back of the house for an hour and a half. When they emerge, the woman’s mouth is a thin line, but Harry just waves at her as she goes, shutting the front door behind her. Nick watches it all from the sofa, his laptop gone to screensaver where it’s balanced on his knees.

“How did it go?” Nick tries to ask him when Harry sits down beside him, folding up his legs and reaching for the remote. He switches the channel to the weather before looking at Nick very curiously, like he’s asked a silly question. Nick almost feels like he’s about to pat him on the head.

“Fine,” Harry says, the _obviously_ going unspoken. “Nice woman. What do you want for tea?”

-

The therapist comes again on Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday as well; she’s meant to come every day. The process repeats itself the same way each time she shows up, Harry politely escorting her into the office for ninety minutes where they close the door and talk about whatever it is they talk about. Nick doesn’t ask; he tries to keep himself busy on the other end of the house while they’re meeting, generally, because Harry probably needs his space.

She doesn’t turn up on Saturday, though. Nick only realizes it when it’s hit two in the afternoon; she’s in and out by noon, typically.

“Harry?” he starts to ask. They’re in the lounge, the television on and Harry sprawled out across one of his enormous sofas with his toes just near Nick’s thighs. He could reach out and prod them easily, but he hasn’t yet, something holding him back.

“Hm?” Harry mumbles. His face is shoved in the pillows, and there’s half a muffin resting on the side table next to him where he’d left it after idly picking at it earlier before losing interest. He does that a lot – loses steam halfway through things. Which Nick understands, as a person whose attention is pretty much always being pulled in three directions at once, but he also usually manages to get both socks on, at least; Harry’s currently only got one.

Nick frowns at Harry’s feet beside him, one bare. The words are just there, on the tip of his tongue – something easy, just _when’s the therapist coming round?_ Because maybe the appointment’s changed times, or maybe it’s a weekend thing, or maybe she’s sick.

But he _knows_ that she’s meant to come every day, same time, rain or shine. And staring at Harry’s one sock, he also feels fairly sure that she’s not coming back.

“Nothing,” he says instead, feeling guilty. He knows it’s not doing Harry any favors, not in the long run, to let him sabotage himself like this. Nick ought to be taking _care_ of him; that’s why he’s bloody here. Letting Harry bunk off therapy because Nick’s too much of a coward to ask about it isn’t taking care of him, not even a little.

But he looks at Harry’s single bloody sock again, and his half-eaten muffin, and his eyes that are nearly closed all the way. His right hand is wrapped around the remote loosely, and he huffs out a breath; he’ll be properly asleep again in less than a minute, Nick’s sure. And he knows he ought to press it, but instead he just rearranges the blanket tighter around the two of them, covering Harry’s bare foot carefully, and lets him sleep.

-

Anne texts Nick the next day, confirming what he’d suspected: Harry’d told the therapist on Friday not bother coming anymore, because he was, of course, _fine_ , and he hadn’t wanted to ‘waste her time.’ Anne wants to know what Nick knows about it, and after a few bumbling texts he winds up on the phone with her for forty-five minutes, huddled in a far corner of the garden so Harry can’t overhear. He’s not trying to be sneaky, it’s just that his phone tends to be easy to eavesdrop on, the earpiece always a bit shouty, and Anne’s crying, and Nick can’t bear to think about Harry overhearing that.

She’s not well pleased about it, but in the end she decides not to come down to London either, which was what she’d originally threatened. Nick promises to keep an even sharper eye on Harry, and that seems good enough for the moment at least.

He’s blowing on his cold hands when he slips back inside. Harry’s just where Nick had left him when his phone went, sitting cross-legged on a stool in the kitchen, prodding disinterestedly at the peel of an orange that he’s left half-finished.

“Who was on the phone?” he asks Nick, looking up at him with a curious but docile expression.

Nick swallows. “Finchy,” he lies. “Work thing. Trying to sort out a new feature, only he’s worried it won’t work out in reality the way it is in Ian’s head. You know how it is.”

“Tell me,” Harry says. “About the show, I mean. I feel like…” He pauses, scrunches up his face, but then continues. “Feels like I’ve missed a lot.”

Nick doesn’t know what to do except grip the edge of the counter tighter.

“Not much,” he says, trying to sound easy and light. “Fifi keeps threatening to go to afternoons because she’s apparently over waking up early, but she’s all talk. And Tina was off for a bit, but she’s back now.”

There’s a bit more – RAJAR numbers and some hosting gigs that are coming his way, and possibly another mix tape, but he doesn’t know how much Harry wants to hear about any of that. It all feels wildly unimportant, at the moment, at least to Nick.

“What else?” Harry asks. “I’d like to hear.”

He seems like he means it, is the thing. Nick can’t fathom that his long-standing feud with the intern who refuses to call him by the right name will be of much interest to Harry, not after he’s had like, a life and death type of experience, but he seems earnest, still blinking up at Nick like he wants nothing better than to hear about the boring details of his job.

So he pulls out the stool next to Harry, sits, and tells him. He’s halfway through a thoroughly uninteresting story of how they’ve rearranged the studio when he starts to hope cautiously that this is a good sign – that this’ll be alright.

-

It isn’t alright. Harry seems well enough – or well enough for him, at least, still quiet and exhausted-seeming but perpetually insisting he’s fine – through the rest of the day and all of supper, laughing quietly through a rerun of the Simpsons.

An hour after Nick goes to bed, though, he wakes up suddenly to a sound coming from his doorway.

It’s Harry, the blurred, dark shape of him going wobbly around the edges as he shakes, and Nick realizes what the sound that woke him was – Harry’s sobbing, these wet, hoarse choking sounds ripping out of his throat every few seconds that send his whole body into tremors.

Nick’s out of bed in an instant, wrapping an arm around Harry’s bare shoulders. He looks frantic – his eyes are wide, tears and snot smudged across his face as he tries to get his breath and fails. _He’s having a panic attack_ , Nick thinks dumbly. 

“Haz,” he says, trying to sound calm. He thinks that’s what he’s meant to do – he’s not exactly an expert in the matter. “Haz, love, I’m here, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

Harry nods, but he seems disconnected from his own body, his gaze glancing wildly around the dark room. He’s only in his pants, but Nick knows it’s not the cold that has him shaking so badly.

“I’m here,” Nick repeats, trying to guide Harry over the bed, helping him sit down gently. Harry goes without protest, but he’s still gasping for breath, still crying.

“Can you try to breathe with me?” Nick asks as he sits down beside him, holding Harry’s hands very gently in his own. He’s got no idea if this is right, going on pure instinct. He remembers, at least, some of the things his own therapist had taught him – mindful breathing, mostly. Nick’s never had panic attacks like this, but he’d been enough of a mess after everything that it hadn’t really seemed like an option _not_ to see a therapist, all things considered.

Harry doesn’t answer, so Nick just holds his hands, moves one of his own to rub across Harry’s back gently. “Just try, alright? Breathe in,” he coaches. He finds himself following his own instructions – breathing in with his diaphragm, holding it for a count of five, slowly letting it out his nose. He’s not sure if Harry’s managing to follow along, but he can tell he’s trying.

They stay like that for a long time, Nick breathing carefully, and Harry doing his best to match it. Eventually Harry’s breath starts to even out; it’s still shallow and labored, but it’s steadier, and he’s stopped crying, mostly. Nick’s not even sure Harry’d known he’d _been_ crying; it’d looked pretty much involuntarily.

When he thinks that Harry’s near enough to calm to maybe try and sleep, Nick nudges him to lay back; he’s not letting Harry go back to his own room tonight under any circumstances. They’ll both sleep here. The bed’s big enough.

Harry lets himself be guided, even lets Nick tug the duvet up around his chin, tucking him in tightly before curling up next to him – not touching, but close enough to be if he needs to.

“D’you want to talk about it?” he asks very carefully after a long moment.

“Bad dream,” is all Harry admits.

“About…” Nick trails off, unsure if he’s allowed to say it.

“Yeah,” Harry whispers hoarsely. He reaches out a hand, finding Nick’s, and squeezes tight.

“Do you think you can sleep?”

Harry doesn’t say anything, just pulls Nick closer to him. Eventually he falls asleep, and Nick watches him long enough to be sure that he’s not going to have another panic attack, at least now, before he lets his own eyes close.

-

The next morning, Harry’s not in bed when Nick wakes up. He panics, for a moment, remembering with a visceral sharpness the full-body terror he’d felt last night at Harry finally falling to pieces, even after bracing himself for it for so long. It’d almost been a relief, though, in an awful way. It’s out there, now: Harry’s not fine, no matter how much he says it, and they’ll call the therapist and she’ll come back and that won’t fix everything but it’ll be a good first step at least.

Only when Nick pads into the kitchen, Harry’s there, humming to himself as he flips eggs on the hob. He’s wearing an _apron_. His hair is damp from the shower, and when he hears Nick coming he spins around and smiles.

“Morning,” he says easily, like nothing is amiss at all. “Doing eggs. Sit down, they’re nearly ready.”

Nick is so baffled that he doesn’t know what to do except obey. This isn’t what he’d expected – he’d expected Harry to look worn out, or exhausted, or at least ready to talk to him. He’d _not_ been expecting him to be squeezing oranges for juice.

He barely tastes the eggs when Harry plonks them down in front of him, his stomach curled in on itself with worry. Across from him, Harry just smiles.

-

They don’t talk about it. Nick tries, a few times, but Harry waves him off, says he’s fine, and Nick has never hated a word more than he’s coming to hate _fine_. But he also doesn’t know how to pry it out of Harry, how he really feels, what he really _needs_ , so he hasn’t got a choice but to let it go.

They have a routine, mostly. Harry usually wakes up earlier than Nick and tries to make breakfast, although sometimes he loses the plot and Nick wanders into the kitchen to discover bread and eggs forgotten on the countertop, Harry sat in a kitchen chair and staring into a cup of tea. Nick takes over, when that happens, and Harry will almost always finish his food without too much dithering or pushing it around his plate.

Harry spends most of his time asleep, still. For whatever reason, Pig’s taken to sleeping with him, at night and during the day both; Nick doesn't know if she’s just pleased to have finally found someone as sedentary as she is, or if she can sense that Harry needs her particular brand of company, calm and unwavering. Either way, he’s happy for Harry, who seems pleased by the development, if sometimes a bit unsure how to pet her. Pig doesn’t mind, anyway.

Harry also calls Niall at least once a day, usually more, although Nick doesn’t know what they talk about. He tries to guess, sometimes, but it sends his head spinning. The only reason he knows it’s Niall is that he catches his name once or twice before Harry retreats into his bedroom to talk to him, sometimes for an hour or longer – he’s the only one Harry’s willing to speak to for that long, or at all, really. Still, Nick breathes a bit easier, knowing that Harry’s got Niall at least.

Eventually Nick starts to feel a bit like a robot set to catalog everything Harry Styles does, searching for meaning in all of his actions and inactions. Is it significant that he showers with the door open, like he doesn’t want to be shut off from the rest of the house? Or that he talks in his sleep? If he eats three quarters of the slice of pizza he’s having for dinner rather than just half, is that a good sign? 

In the end, he supposes it doesn’t matter, because Harry has another panic attack a few days after the first, and all those things turn out to mean fuck all when Nick’s got Harry shaking and weeping in his bed in the middle of the night.

He tries to calm Harry the same way, deep breaths and a steady hand rubbing his back. It lasts longer, but Harry quiets eventually, and sleeps in Nick’s bed again. Nick doesn’t mind; he prefers him here, close, where he can keep an eye on him.

In the morning, Harry’s baking scones in the kitchen.

That’s what scares Nick, more than anything; the panic attacks are terrifying, but they make _sense_. Harry in an apron weighing out cake flour the next morning smiling like nothing’s at all wrong doesn’t make sense, not even a bit.

He suggests, the morning after it happens for the third time – and just a day before Nick’s due to start up at the show again – that he can probably take more time off work, if Harry needs him to.

“Why would you need to do that?” Harry asks, puzzled, passing Nick a mug of coffee like six hours ago he wasn’t struggling to breathe and clinging to Nick’s t-shirt like he might fall off the face of the earth if he let go.

“To… keep you company,” Nick says slowly. “To make sure you’re alright? I dunno.”

“I’m alright,” Harry insists. Nick must twist up his face disbelievingly, because Harry leans in closer and runs his thumb over Nick’s cheekbone like _Nick’s_ the one who needs comfort. “Hey,” Harry says. “I promise.”

It’s a lie; it’s an absolute lie. But Nick’s not strong enough to say so, so he just nods against Harry’s hand.

-

Nick’s on a reduced schedule at work, which means everything except for the show itself is on hold, he doesn’t have to go to production meetings, and Dev’s still filling in for him on Fridays for at least another several weeks. Nick had picked Fridays arbitrarily when he’d arranged it; it’s not as if he and Harry have any standing plans on a given day, but still, Nick hadn’t wanted to leave him alone for five days out of the week, at least not straight away. Harry’d tried to tell him he was being stupid, but Nick doesn’t really care if he is or not. Harry’s been left alone enough for a lifetime.

Nick’s first day back isn’t his best; the links are uneven, and he’s clearly off his game. He blames Finchy, mostly, who’d made his _I know more than I’m admitting face_ when he’d asked after Nick’s ‘personal emergency’ first thing, doing a sympathetic and cautious thing with his eyebrows. Which means he knows exactly why Nick’s been off, and Nick hadn’t really meant it to be a secret, but he’s also not going to admit it out loud either, so it just winds up turning into an awkward stalemate. The rest of the team must know too, but at least they have the decency to pretend they don’t a bit more believably than Finchy.

Nick dances around his absence on air, making only vague references to his ‘unplanned holiday’ and leaving it at that. He knows there are rumors, that he’s dying or been sacked or whatever, but he doesn’t give a shit about any of that; he hasn’t got the energy to, on top of everything else.

“You’re still awfully pale for someone who’s been on holiday,” Fiona says the second time he carts the ‘unplanned holiday’ line out.

“Excuse me, Fifi, I’ve got a rich glow about me like always,” he says, trying to put the appropriate amount of outrage into his voice. His throat feels too thick, though, because the idea of lying out in the sun on a secluded beach suddenly only puts him in mind of one awful line of thought, one that involves Harry and the island and too-bright sun and he’d really, really prefer not to go down that path right now, or possibly ever. He’s becoming vigorously adept at not thinking about what Harry’d been through in any detail.

“Do you want to grab lunch?” Matt asks once they’ve finally wrapped up for the day.

“Can’t,” Nick says, winding his scarf around his neck. “Gotta get home.” Which isn’t really a lie; he just doesn’t specify _whose_ home.

“Right. Later this week, then?”

“Sure,” Nick shrugs, not really meaning it.

“Listen,” Matt starts hesitantly. “I just want you to know – we aren’t mentioning, um. Any of it. With… Harry. Not even an allusion, so. And we’re screening the callers and they know they won’t go on if they mention it either. Just didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Okay,” Nick says slowly, feeling his heart start to beat sluggishly. “That’s good.” It _is_ ; he thinks if he has to address it on air, he’ll be sick all over a very expensive piece of radio equipment.

“Tina might have to, though,” Matt says, apologetically, like it’s all his fault. “Not excessively, but it _is_ news. So. If anything comes up.”

“Of course.” Nick feels woozy; he thinks he can feel pinpricks of sweating beading up on his forehead.

“I just wanted to warn you,” Matt finishes. He looks for a second like he might reach out and pat Nick sympathetically on the arm, but he only ends up stuffing his hand in his coat pocket.

“Thanks,” Nick says blandly. “Listen, I’ve really got to go. You’ll, um. Email me the meeting stuff?”

“‘Course,” Matt agrees quickly. Then he smiles unevenly and he’s gone, leaving Nick to go down and wait for his car alone.

-

When he gets back from work on Thursday, Harry’s entire house looks like it’s been ransacked in a very strange way. Everything’s up off the floors, including Pig, who’s perched on a stack of cushions on the sofa. The hoover’s left unplugged in the middle of the sitting room carpet, which seems to be only half-hoovered, and there’s a smell of artificial lemons in the air.

The kitchen is in a similar state, half the sink filled up with bubbles and a careless array of dishes stacked in the drying rack. There’s a broom and dustpan left in the middle of the floor as if someone had dropped them there in a hurry.

The rest of the house is in a similar state, tidying up half-started and then forgotten. He finds Harry in his ensuite, eventually, curled up into a ball in the enormous soaking tub, rubbing his thumb over an invisible spot on the gleaming silver faucet. He looks impossibly small, and Nick’s chest constricts.

“Whatcha doin’?” Nick asks, glancing around as he crosses the room to sit on the edge of the bathtub. There are sponges and flannels beside the sink, and glass cleanser that Harry doesn’t seem to have done much more with besides get out and set on the counter.

Harry looks up at him and smiles wanly. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Cleaning. Figured it’d be something to do.”

“Seems like you got a bit distracted,” Nick says placidly.

“Well,” Harry says, ducking his head a bit. His finger is still rubbing at the edge of the faucet like he’s trying to polish it dead away. “Got tired. Stamina’s not what it used to be, I suppose.”

Nick knows it’s a joke; it’s meant to be a funny joke, and he’s supposed to laugh, but he can’t. It mostly makes him feel like he’s been hit with a brick in the face.

“Um,” he says eventually, because Harry is blinking up at him expectantly. He tries to smile. “That’s alright, anyway,” he says, holding out a hand to help Harry climb out of the bathtub. He sways unsteadily at first, but they make it out into the hall and eventually the kitchen. Nick picks up the broom and dustpan as they goes, as surreptitiously as he can manage.

“Want a sandwich?” Nick asks.

Harry looks like he’s going to protest, because he likes to get their food, but he also looks tired and unsteady, so he doesn’t argue any.

When Harry’s distracted petting Pig’s head – she’s waddled in from the next room now that she hears food noises happening – Nick slides his phone out of his pocket, trying to look casual, which probably only makes him look more like he’s doing something suspicious. He has no idea if the number saved in his phone is the right one or not, but it’s the only thing he can think of, and he bangs out a text as quick as he can:

_hiya niall sry to bother you but i think harry could maybe use someone to talk to at the mo? if you’re free could you maybe ring him? i think he’d appreciate it. this is grimmy btw_

He knows it’s a shot in the dark, and he never gets a response, but five minutes later Harry’s phone goes off, audibly vibrating in the pocket of his trackies. He pulls it out, and it must be Niall, because he doesn’t decline the call, just nods at Nick and retreats out of the room, leaving his unfinished sandwich behind him.

-

That becomes Nick’s only trick, eventually; when Harry stays up too late cleaning, or forgets to do up half of his clothes, or won’t eat anything, Nick asks Niall to phone him. He’s the only one who can bring Harry back to himself even part way, and Nick almost selfishly wishes it could be him, or that he could at least know how Niall does it, but so long as Harry looks calmer once he gets off the phone with Niall – can even be persuaded into finishing a meal, usually – that’s all that matters.

“You know,” Nick says one evening as they’re watching television. Harry’d been in the office for the last twenty minutes speaking to Niall, and he’s finally back, resting his head on Nick’s lap so he can card his fingers through Harry’s hair. It’s starting to grow back a bit, but it’s still so short.

“Hm?” Harry prompts when Nick trails off.

“Just,” he says. “He could come, yeah? Niall. I mean, if he’s alright, y’know, I dunno if he can travel, but…”

“He’s alright,” Harry says slowly. “He’s said he wants to come back to London in a bit.”

“Well,” Nick says, uncomfortable. He doesn’t know if he’s crossing any lines here, but he finds he has to offer; it’s all he’s got. “If you wanted him to come stay for a bit? Only if you want the company, of course, and only if it’s alright for him to come, I don’t want to presume, but.”

“But,” Harry repeats slowly.

“I think it would be nice for you,” Nick says slowly. His fingers are loose in Harry’s hair and he wants to tighten them, wind them in there and never let go, but he doesn’t want to hurt Harry either.

Harry doesn’t answer for a long time, just stares at the television. He’s quiet so long that Nick thinks he might be asleep, but during an advert for headphones he tips his face up at Nick, squinting in the dim light of the room, and murmurs “Okay, yeah. I’ll ask.”

And that’s that.

-

It’s not a good sign, probably, when Nick’s phone goes one afternoon while they’re eating a late lunch in front of the television and it takes him a moment to place the name on the screen before remembering, _right._ James. His _boyfriend_.

Nick excuses himself to the office before answering, nodding at Harry to keep the film going.

“Hiya,” he says, once he’s safe inside the office, sitting down on the fancy sofa beneath the picture window.

“Hey,” James says. “How’re you?”

“Oh,” Nick says, waving his hand around vaguely before he can remind himself that James can’t see him. “Fine.” He winces at the word as soon as it’s out of his mouth. “You?”

“Fine,” James repeats.

There’s a long pause, and then James starts to talk about work, some project he’s got going; Nick doesn’t get most of the details, but he’s pretty sure that’s not why James is calling anyway, so he resigns himself to waiting until James trails off, the silence stretching out between them while they both wait for the other to say what’s coming next.

“Haven’t seen you since you’ve been back,” James finally says. “Been a few weeks, y’know?”

It’s been nearly a month, actually. “Yeah,” Nick says. He tries to make it sound like an apology, but probably misses. “Well. Harry, y’know? He’s…”

He doesn’t finish, though, because when he thinks about it, it’s not really James’ business how Harry is. The pregnant silence returns when it becomes clear Nick isn’t going to clarify any.

“Go ahead and ask if you want to,” Nick says, sighing and picking at the armrest. He knows that James at least won’t bother to pretend not to know what he’s talking about.

“Are you planning to come home any time soon?” James asks. There’s not even a hint of edge to his voice, which, honestly, Nick had sort of expected. He just sounds mild.

“Dunno,” Nick says. He doesn’t see the point beating around the issue.

“He can’t expect you to stay there with him forever,” James says doubtfully.

“Obviously not,” Nick says, feeling annoyed suddenly. “But he needs me here now, so I’m staying.” 

“Right.” James sighs. “Of course.”

“Sorry if that’s not convenient for you,” Nick says. He means it to come out barbed, but it doesn’t quite come off, mostly winding up flat and tired. He doesn’t have it in him to fight, really. This isn’t even a fight; it’s a non-issue.

“If you say so.”

“Look, you don’t need to feel obligated to wait around for me,” Nick says. “But I’m staying. Maybe for a while. So.”

“So,” James repeats.

Nick waits, feeling petulant, not wanting to be the one to fill the silence. He can wait plenty.

“I don’t want to be unreasonable,” James starts evenly. Nick already knows where this is going to go. “But…”

“But I have to come home because I’ve been neglecting you,” Nick finishes blandly.

“It sounds shit when you say it like that.”

Nick snorts. “Well. It is a bit shit. All around, I mean.”

“I don’t want to make you choose,” James says.

“I wouldn’t,” Nick says honestly. It’s not a choice. It’s Harry.

“I figured,” James admits. “Well. I’m not going to try and force you. I know that doesn’t work.”

Nick laughs. For a moment, he almost feels bad.

“Thanks,” he says, meaning it.

“Just to be clear,” James says. “This is…”

“Yeah,” Nick says, clearing his throat. “This is, uh. Done.”

“Done,” James repeats. Nick makes a noise of assent.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. He does mean it, really. It’s just not enough.

There’s a long silence that doesn’t feel loaded so much as meaningful. Then James clears his throat, and says he’ll arrange a time to get his things from Nick’s flat, and bring Nick’s things over when he does, and then they both apologizes one more time and ring off and then it’s over, Nick ending the call, staring at his phone as it goes black, trying and failing to feel sorry about what’s just happened.

When he looks up, Harry’s in the doorway. He doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that he’d been listening in, just shoves his hands into the pockets of his trackies and pads soundlessly across the carpet to sit beside Nick, his feet bare.

“Was that James?” Harry asks, sitting down beside Nick.

“Yeah,” Nick says. For some reason the only thing he can bring himself to feel guilty for is bothering with James at all when Harry’d been in the next room. That might be strange, for having just finished with his boyfriend, but Nick supposes stranger things have happened recently.

“Did you, um. Break up?” Harry sounds very small when he asks.

Nick shrugs. “I think so. Yeah, basically.”

“Oh.” Harry picks at the knee of his track pants. “I’m sorry.”

Nick shrugs again, and smiles. “Nah, don’t be. Not bothered.” He’s not, is the thing.

“Was it about me?” Harry asks. “Like… because you’re here with me instead of with him?”

Nick wants to lie, because it sounds awful when Harry says it like that, but he also can’t lie to Harry. Never has been able to.

“A bit,” he admits. “But I don’t care. Honestly. Not really a choice between the two of you. Stupid of him to try and make me pick. He was never gonna win that one.”

“Really?” Harry asks.

“Of course.”

Harry looks at him for a long moment. For once he’s not doing the thing where he wipes all the emotion off his face – he looks open, and real, and sad around the edges, vulnerable in a way he’s barely shown at all.

Then he’s leaning in, pressing his lips against Nick’s closed mouth, and _oh_. He’s kissing Harry again.

Nick had spent over a year knowing with absolute certainty that he’d had his last kiss with Harry. He _remembers_ it, awfully, the exact last one – an off-the-cuff thing several months before the accident. Harry’d spent the night at Nick’s flat; they’d shagged and ate coco pops in the morning and Harry’d left before eight to catch a flight. He’d pressed a quick kiss against Nick’s mouth on his way to the door, and then turned back for a longer, softer one, and then he’d been gone.

Nick remembers. Nick’s spent an awfully long time remembering.

And he’d come to terms with it, mostly. That that was the last one. That everything he’d had with Harry was now, by nature, in the past, a complete set that would never grow any larger than it already was. And that was awful, but he hadn’t had a choice in the matter either. He’d worked really, really hard to be – not _okay_ with it, but not to dwell on it either.

So having Harry kiss him again now is like his whole world getting tipped on its axis for – what, a third time? And this is somehow even more disorienting than either Harry dying or coming back to life, because those had been real things, things everyone had known; this, kissing Harry again, this only exists between the two of them.

And fuck, he loves kissing Harry. He bloody loves _Harry_ ; that’s all there is to it, when you get down to it.

And right now Harry is real; he’s alive and he’s kissing Nick like he’ll drown without him, and when Nick opens his eyes – just to check, just to be sure – there’s something sad and vulnerable on Harry’s face, visible even from just an inch away. Nick closes his eyes again, pulls Harry in tighter, kisses like he might never get the chance again, because he knows now that it’s always possible, for anything to be the last, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up just in case it is.

Harry leans back, eventually, but he keeps his hands in Nick’s, still practically sitting in Nick’s lap and not showing any signs that he’s planning to move away.

He sniffs, and when Nick opens his eyes, there’s tears on Harry’s cheeks.

“Sorry,” he says, but doesn’t move to wipe his face. He just carries on looking at Nick. “It’s just–”

“I get it,” Nick tells him. He _does_ – it’s a lot. “It’s okay, though, yeah?”

Harry nods, taking a steadying breath like he’s bracing himself to say something. It takes several moments before he steels himself enough to manage.

“I thought,” Harry starts, biting his lip. “While I was – during everything.” He hesitates again, but Nick just waits; he can wait for ages, if that’s what Harry needs. “I thought that was it, you know? I mean, why would we think we’d ever get rescued? It wasn’t possible. So I figured, alright, well, I’ve done everything I’m going to do, now, and – and I’ll probably die here. I knew I wouldn’t ever, like – see the rest of the lads again, or my mum, of course. But all this other little stuff too, like a car, or snow, or like, a cup of tea or anything. Got used to thinking that. Which was… I dunno.” He takes a shuddery breath. “But at least I didn’t have any regrets about any of that, yeah? I did… I did an alright job of not having regrets. But when I thought about never seeing you again – that was the worst bit. I mean, shit, did you even know I was in love with you? Because I never said, but I was. I am.”

It’s by far the most words Nick’s heard Harry string together at a time since they’ve come back to London; since Harry’s been home at all, in fact. And Nick doesn’t know what to do with any of them, except swallow hard and try not to cry himself.

“I was so angry,” Harry continues on quietly, his voice hoarse. “That I never told you. That’s what I was the angriest about. That I fucked it up and you’d never know.”

“Oh, love,” Nick says. “I knew. I know.”

Harry sort of collapses into him at that, his breath hitching as he presses his face into Nick’s t-shirt. 

“It’s hard,” he says when he pulls away. His face is red and blotchy from crying, but he’s still unfairly beautiful. “I still think I’m there, sometimes. At night, that’s what… that’s what the nightmares are. And, like. It’s weird, but you kind of make peace with it, after a while, in an awful kind of way. So coming back is like…” He screws up his face and tries to find the words, but he must not be able to, because eventually he shrugs. “I think Niall’s the only person in the world who understands. How it almost feels wrong to be here again.”

“I’m glad you’ve got him,” Nick says, wiping at Harry’s cheek with his thumb. “To speak with. And I’m glad he’s coming to stay.”

“Me too,” Harry admits. “But, also – I don’t want you to think I’m not happy to be back here with you either, yeah? Because – because I am. Really fucking happy. I’m happy I’m alive and that I get a second chance even though I dunno why I deserve one, but I am. I think I just maybe don’t show it right?”

“You don’t have to show it any way at all,” Nick says, pulling Harry tight against him again. His head rests on Nick’s shoulder heavily and he can’t help but press an awkward kiss against Harry’s temple.

“And I’m glad you’re here too, for the record,” Nick adds.

Harry tilts his head up. “Yeah?”

“Of course,” Nick says firmly. “When you were gone, it was–”

He stops himself, though; he’s not sure if Harry needs to hear about how shit it was after he’d disappeared, how near to totally falling apart Nick had come, and the awful process of trying to put himself back together after he’d come back from the brink of it.

“You can tell me,” Harry says. “No one wants to tell me anything that they think will upset me, but it’s alright.”

“It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” Nick admits quietly, blinking hard. “Is that too much?”

“No,” Harry says. “It’s – I mean, I hate to think about you hurting, but it’s nice to know what you’re thinking. And that I was, like. Important to you.” He crinkles his nose at that, and turns his face further into Nick’s shoulder.

“I should’ve said it too,” Nick says. “That I loved you, I mean. I figured – well. I figured you knew, and I figured we’d always have time later on to get it right, do it proper. I just always assumed we would. Felt like a right tit when I realized how much I’d taken it for granted. That you’d always come back to me.”

“I would’ve,” Harry whispers. “If I could.”

Nick nods against Harry’s head, hoping he understands that he knows. “The worst part,” Nick says slowly, because this is something he hasn’t said at all yet, not to anyone, not even the therapist he’d been seeing. “Was when people told me how sorry they were, they always said, like, _your friend_ , they’re so sorry to hear about _my friend_ , and I wanted to throttle them all a bit, because, like. That was never it. It was more than that, yeah? And nobody knew, and I couldn’t say, and now I’d never be able to set the record straight, never get it right. It was shit.”

Harry sits up. “We could,” he says quietly. “We could get it right this time.”

He leans in and kisses Nick again, softly but then firmer, his fingers tight around Nick’s wrists. Nick lets himself enjoy it for a moment – probably too long – but then pulls away carefully.

“Hazza,” he says as gently as he can manage. “Just… I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not now.”

Harry deflates an inch.

“Only, I mean… you’ve got so much else to deal with. I don’t want to be another thing.” Nick desperately wants Harry to understand, to wipe the hurt look off his face, but he knows – he _knows_ he’s not the best boyfriend in the world; he’s got recent experience demonstrating just that. He can’t be another thing Harry’s got to contend with on top of everything else.

“I love you,” Nick continues softly, rubbing his thumb over the bone of Harry’s wrist. “And that’s why I can’t…” His voice crumples a bit. “I can’t be selfish about this. You ought to be focusing on getting well, not bothering with me.”

Harry stares at him for long enough that Nick thinks he might wilt; Harry’s face is going tighter and more drawn with every second, and he’s biting his lip so hard it seems like it’s close to bleeding, and _Nick did that. Nick is the one who made him look like that._ It crushes something in his chest.

“Why does everyone think I’m so damaged?” Harry finally asks quietly, dropping his gaze down to their hands.

Nick swallows hard. “I don’t think you’re damaged,” he says, and he does mean it, truly. “But I also think you’ve been through something awful, and… and I’d have to chuck myself off a bridge if I did anything to make it worse.”

“How?” Harry asks plaintively. “How could you make it worse?”

Nick tries to laugh, and fails. “I’d find a way to manage.”

Harry pulls his hands away gently, presses their heels against his eyes. He sniffs heavily, but when he puts his hands back in his lap, his eyes are dry.

“This isn’t fair,” he says, standing up and taking a step away from Nick. “I can’t – it’s not fair. No one trusts me to make my own choices anymore.”

“I trust you,” Nick says.

“You don’t,” Harry says softly. “And I reckon it’s ‘cos you care about me and all, but…” He trails off. “I need to go,” he says, and for a wild moment Nick thinks he means _go_ , go away from Nick, get out of the house and disappear. The thought makes Nick want to be sick; he needs Harry where he can see him. But Harry shakes his head and continues. “Just… I’m going to lie down. Sorry I – well. Sorry.”

He heads for the hall and turns towards his bedroom. “Wake me for dinner if you like,” he adds, his voice suddenly flat, and then he’s gone, the door of his room snicking shut quietly behind him.

Nick tries the handle a while later, just to check; it’s locked.

-

It’s not that Harry’s ignoring Nick, particularly. He’s doesn’t even seem _upset_ with Nick. He’s just… quiet, again. Just like he’d been before he’d told Nick, before they’d kissed and before Nick had pulled away and sent the shutters down on Harry’s face again. Maybe a bit quieter.

He eats the same amount, he watches the same television, he even crawls into Nick’s bed same as usual when he has another panic attack, this one quieter but no less consuming. But he doesn’t make any hints at what he’s feeling, and Nick can’t help but think it’s his own fault for pulling away the moment Harry’d let himself be vulnerable. Even if it’d been the right thing to do; it _was_ , Nick’s sure. He knows just going off how much he wants to take it back, how badly he wants to curl up in Harry’s lap and apologize and tell him that they can do it, they can have their second chance and everything will be suddenly all right again.

He knows he can’t, though; he knows that isn’t how it works, and it’s not fair to Harry, and that he can’t fuck it up this time – he can only do what he knows will help Harry. The violent, selfish part of him that wants to say _fuck it all_ and kiss Harry until they can’t breathe is just a reminder of that – how he can’t do that. How he has to be better than that.

So they carry on like before. If it feels like there’s a bit more distance between them than before, then that’s Nick’s own bloody fault.

So it’s a relief, almost, when Niall arrives. It’s a distraction, at least, and it snaps them out of their awkward orbit of each other.

Niall comes with two people in tow who help him into the house with his bag and make sure he’s settled before leaving again. They don’t look like the typical hulking handlers, which makes Nick suspect they’re probably friends or relatives, tasked with keeping him company. Niall’s limping a bit, favoring his knee; Nick doesn’t know if he’s hurt it again – Harry hasn’t said – but other than that he looks well enough, if a bit too thin in the same way Harry does.

Niall hugs Nick briefly once they’re all inside, stays in the kitchen long enough to have a cup of tea, and then he and Harry disappear into the back of the house, shutting themselves up in Harry’s bedroom.

They stay there the rest of the day. Nick tries to give them privacy, although he does bring them a tray with sandwiches and tea around midday. He hears their voices low through the door, and for a minute he’s not sure if he should knock or just leave the tray. Eventually he shakes his head and taps the door with his knuckles, and when Niall calls for him to come in, he and Harry are huddled together in the enormous bed, Harry’s white duvet wrapped around them like a cocoon. It makes Nick’s heart flutter, and he can’t tell if it hurts or not.

“Thanks,” Harry says quietly when Nick sets the food on the foot of the bed. He smiles at him, and it’s small, but it feels genuine.

“No problem.” Nick wants to stay there, reveling in Harry’s smile. He’d tried not to admit it even to himself, but he can’t help but worry that he might’ve irrevocably damaged something between them. He still thinks it was the right decision, probably, but the idea that he’s ruined them has been nagging him ever since.

But with Harry smiling at him like that, small as it is, he thinks maybe he hasn’t. Not completely, at least.

He leaves them, shutting the door behind them, feeling a bit less like he’s being choked as he goes. He hums as he boils water for pasta, later, something tuneless but upbeat.

-

Niall stays for five days, and he and Harry spend almost all that time together, huddled in Harry’s bed. They come down for meals, even if it’s just a curry Nick’s called in for, and when they do, Harry’s still quiet, but he seems lighter, less weighed down; he leans into Niall’s side almost constantly, and smiles at him, and Nick can’t feel anything except a raw sort of happiness that Harry’s got Niall, that they’ve got each other. It makes it that much easier to go to work, especially, knowing that he isn’t leaving Harry alone to shuffle around the house alone.

The morning before Niall’s due to leave, Nick comes down to the kitchen and finds Niall standing there, searching through Harry’s cupboards for tea bags and mugs.

“Hello,” he says, mildly surprised that Niall’s alone. “Where’s Harry?”

“Still sleeping,” Niall says. “Cuppa?”

That surprises Nick even more; Harry hardly ever sleeps late, and it’s close to ten now. Nick had woken up himself an hour ago, but stayed in bed checking his work email on his phone for a bit. He’s dreadfully behind on his work email.

“I’ll do a coffee in a bit,” he tells Niall. “Thanks, though.” 

Niall shrugs easily, and putters around the kitchen for a while like it’s his own home, familiar and comfortable. When he’s eventually bunged together a cup of tea, toast, and a few cold sausages from the refrigerator, he sits down next to Nick at the table and says, “So,” very seriously.

“So?” Nick repeats.

“So how’s he been?” Niall asks.

Nick shrugs; Niall probably knows better than him, anyway. “Dunno. Alright, I suppose? He doesn’t really… he doesn’t really talk to me. About… any of it.” He feels uncomfortable, suddenly, even dancing around the subject, because whatever had happened to Harry had happened to Niall as well; he’s not sure how much he ought to say, how directly he can address it.

“He’s always been a bit tight like that,” Niall agrees. “Wears his heart on his sleeve, yeah, but try and get him to admit something’s wrong and he clams right the fuck up.”

Nick nods, relieved to find he’s not the only one who’s noticed.

“He needs to go back to his therapist, though,” Niall says, a bit sternly, like Nick’s the one who gave Harry permission to bunk off or something. “Or find another one he likes better. But he needs to go. He can’t deal with this all on his own. Gonna get all tangled up in his own head even worse if he tries.”

“That’s what I told him,” Nick says – although, when he thinks about it, he’s not sure if that’s actually true. “Or at least – I mean. I dunno. I know he should, but I also don’t want to press him?”

“He needs you to, though,” Niall says. “He won’t take care of himself properly, so you’ve got to make him.”

“I know,” Nick says, feeling a bit chagrined. “I will.”

There’s a pause between them. “I think,” Niall says slowly. “That’s he’s a bit more fucked up than he’ll admit.”

Nick nods.

“But,” Niall continues. “I think you also gotta listen to him. He’s not total damaged goods, I reckon; he’s probably also really fucking glad to be alive, and to get another chance at this all. So you should believe him, when he says that. Trust me.”

“God,” Nick says, his stomach twisting. Somehow, he’d never really considered that. “I – yeah. You’re right. Fuck. I’ve cocked this all up, haven’t I?”

“‘Nah,” Niall says reassuringly, reaching out to pat Nick’s hand. “Not really a manual for shit like this, is there? Anyway, I know it means the world to him you’re here. Means the world to _me_ , shit. He really fucking loves you, you know?”

Nick supposes he does; moreover, Niall sounds so sure that Nick doesn’t think he could possibly argue anyway. Not for the first time, he wonders what it was like for Niall and Harry there, and not just in a general staying-alive way – he wonders what they talked about, how they bonded together and took care of each other. Nick reckons they’ll probably be taking care of each other for the rest of their lives.

“How are you, anyway?” Nick asks, not sure it’s any of his business but wanting to ask anyway. “With – everything. I didn’t mean to drag you over here and all, but…”

Niall shrugs again. “‘M’alright. Some days better than others. I didn’t quit seeing my therapist like a tit, though, so that probably helps. Although I’ve been seein’ her for ages anyway.”

He says it so easily that Nick can’t even feel uncomfortable, like he’s hearing something he oughtn’t. Niall has that way about him, somehow; calming and easy, like even the unpleasant bits are manageable enough to face head on.

“You have?” Nick asks.

Niall nods. “Claustrophobia went to shit for a while a few years ago. Figured I needed to get myself sorted, since crowds were part of the whole thing, y’know?” He laughs a bit. “Funny thing, though, hasn’t been an issue since we got back. Can you imagine? Oughta advertise it as a cure – get stranded on an island for a year and suddenly small spaces don’t seem so bad.”

He’s laughing as he says it, but Nick feels – as he always does at any explicit mention of it all, at words like _stranded_ and _island_ and _plane crash_ – like he’s been winded a bit. He knows he should try to smile, but mostly he tries not to hyperventilate.

Niall raises his eyebrows at him. “‘S’alright, mate. It’s a joke. You can laugh.”

“Ha?” Nick tries. It comes out so pathetic he can’t help but wince.

“Bit of advice,” Niall says, smiling comfortingly as he pushes his chair back and gathers up his plate and mug. “You should probably try and laugh if he makes jokes like that, or at least not look like you’ve just seen a puppy be murdered. Reckon it’ll only make him feel worse if he can’t even make you laugh anymore.”

Nick tries to remember if he’s laughed at anything Harry’s said since he’s been back, and horrifically, can’t think of any examples.

“Shit,” he says again.

Niall pats him on the shoulder. “‘S’alright, mate. You’re trying. You’ll figure it out. Just – be glad you’ve got him again, yeah? I know he’s glad he’s got you.”

He goes out of the room at that, and Nick sits at the table for a long time, alone. He turns that over in his head – _be glad you’ve got him, be glad you’ve got him_. He thinks, maybe, he’s been shit at that. He’s been so busy worrying about how to make Harry _better_ that he hasn’t really had time to just appreciate the fact that Harry’s _alive_. Jesus. Harry’s _alive_ , and he loves Nick, and it’s suddenly overwhelming, the wonder of that all. Nick wants to kick himself for not realizing it sooner.

-

He wants to do it right, is the thing. Nick knows that he can be impulsive sometimes, and now that it’s all clicked into place in his head he’s barely restraining himself from immediately cornering Harry and just letting whatever comes out of his mouth come out, trust himself to get the jist of it: that he’s been an idiot, and that he’s been in love with Harry for years, and that he’s not going to waste another instant not being with him, not when it can all go to shit at any time. That he knows, now, that life is entirely too short and unpredictable for that.

But. He wants to do it _right_. He wants to prove to Harry that he’s _thought_ about this, and that it’s not just another impulse, or him telling Harry what he wants to hear. It feels too important for that by far.

He’s shit at big romantic gestures, though. He has vague ideas of like, fireworks and hot air balloon rides and shit like that, but obviously none of that’s right. Anyway, they’re necessarily limited by circumstance – Harry still doesn’t really leave the house, for instance. And Nick doesn’t want to overwhelm him, or somehow twist it around to be about proving something rather than actually sorting out how to tell Harry like an adult that he’s in it for the long haul.

He settles on doing a nice dinner, just for the two of them. That seems like a good middle ground – romantic dinner for two isn’t groundbreaking or anything, but it’s something they’re both up to, at least. He can take a few days and plan up something he can probably cook, and more importantly, what he wants to say, how he wants to say it. He wants to get it right – Harry deserves for him to get it right.

Two days later, they’re sprawled on opposite ends of the sofa and watching the end of a _Friends_ marathon. It’s late, or at least late for someone who has to be up at 5:30, and Nick’s eyes are drooping a bit, but he hasn’t been able to pry himself up yet. Mostly because the room is dim and cozy, and Harry’s nearby – not near enough to touch, but still _near_ , and the silence between them isn’t awkward, just peaceful. Nick’s heart lurches a bit whenever he remembers: that he’s going to do it soon, for better or for worse. That he’s going to tell Harry he’s all in if he’ll have him, and then let the chips fall where they may. It feels terrifying and wonderful all at once, because Nick’s so stupidly in love that he _has_ to try, the very best he can, and he knows that he’ll be shattered if it all goes it shit anyway despite his plans. He’s not sure what he’ll do if he loses this all for a second time, even just this – Harry, nearby, breathing.

The plan is for Friday – three days from now. That gives Nick enough time to figure out if he can cook an adequate Beef Wellington or if he should just settle for a standard fare roast, and find out where Harry hides his candles, and sort out his words. That’s the important part, really. Nick wonders if he should make notecards so he doesn’t miss any crucial points; he _can’t_ cock it up. He just can’t.

That’s the plan. Only when Harry finally sits up and moves to start heading for his room for the night, Nick’s heart suddenly skips around with how badly he feels the need to say it now: _I’m sorry, I love you, I really fucking love you_.

“Going to bed, I think,” Harry says placidly, a yawn cracking his jaw. He stretches as he stands, stumbling a bit and then catching himself on the edge of the sofa. His joggers are still too big, slipping down his hips, and his face is sleepy and warm, and he’s going to disappear down the hall and into his room and close the door behind himself and all Nick can think is, _don’t_. _Don’t go away from me._

So that’s what he says. “Don’t,” he blurts out.

Harry stops, turns back to Nick and cocks his head curiously. “Don’t go to bed?”

“No. I mean, no, you – just.” Nick kicks the blanket that’s been tangled around his feet away and sits up. “Don’t go without me,” he says. Fuck, this isn’t how he’d meant to do this. He’d meant to choose his words very carefully, to approach it all in a thoughtful and romantic and _coherent_ sort of way, but when it comes down to it, all he can think is that he doesn’t want Harry to go. Not anywhere that Nick can’t follow.

“I don’t understand,” Harry says slowly. His hand is still resting on the back of the sofa, and Nick’s never loved anyone so much.

“I’ve been really stupid,” Nick says, kneeing awkwardly across the cushions until he’s just beside Harry. He reaches out tentatively and rests his hand on Harry’s. “About… about how we shouldn’t, like. Do this. Shouldn’t be together.”

Harry’s face does something, goes almost soft – a bit confused around the mouth, but soft all the same.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nick agrees. “Really, really stupid. Um. Niall sort of knocked some sense into me, I think.”

Harry breathes out a little laugh.

“But the thing is,” Nick continues. His heart is beating very fast, all of a sudden, and he tries to remember everything he’d wanted to say, all the words he’d started to practice. They’ve all flown out of his head now, though.

“The thing is, I’ve always, always been in love with you, yeah?” It shouldn’t feel so breathtaking to say, because Nick’s already _said_. But the stakes are higher this time. This is I love you _and_ , not I love you _but_. “And I was wrong, because that’s all that matters, innit? Like. Waiting around is stupid. Because who knows what comes next, yeah? I’m not – I’m not going to be the twat who gets a second chance and fucks that one up too.”

He swallows hard; his hands are sweating, and Harry’s looking at him inscrutably, and Nick’s stomach swoops for a moment because maybe it’s too late, maybe he’s already spoiled it all, really and for good this time. But then Harry leans in, slowly, bringing both his hands to cup Nick’s face until he’s only a breath away. Nick thinks he’s about to kiss him, but then he hesitates.

“Do you mean it?” Harry asks softly, his eyes wide and a bit wet in the low light.

Nick breathes out shakily. “You came back to me,” he all but whispers, resting his own hands over Harry’s. “‘M’not letting you go again.”

Harry does kiss him, then. Soft and a bit hesitantly, like he’s not sure if he can trust Nick not to pull away again, which stings, but Nick thinks he deserves as much. He just tightens his grip over Harry’s hands and kisses back, and hopes Harry understands what he means: _I’m not going anywhere._

They stay like that for a long moment, kissing until Nick’s neck starts to twinge from the angle, but even then he stays where he is.

Harry pulls away, eventually, but only an inch. His eyes are still bright.

“We probably have to like, talk about this,” he says slowly.

Nick nods as best he can – his face is still trapped between Harry’s hands.

“Figure out how to do it right,” Harry adds. “‘Cos, like. I wanna do it right.”

“God, me too,” Nick says. “Dunno if you know if, but you’re kind of it for me.”

“Good,” Harry says, kissing Nick again. “Me too.”

“And we can figure it out,” Nick says, feeling more confident now that he hasn’t been turned down – that he’s said it, and rather than the Earth stopping turning, he suddenly just feels _right_. “We won’t be tits about it. We’ll figure it out. We’ll, like. We’ll find a therapist you like, and, shit, I should probably see one too, and we won’t… we won’t be idiots. We’ll figure it out.”

He knows he’s repeating himself; he knows, too, that the hard work is in front of them, that just saying it out loud doesn’t mean it won’t be awful, sometimes. But it’s a good place to start.

Harry nods, and reaches out a hand to Nick; he takes it, and stands from the sofa.

They will figure it out. There’s time. They’ll get it right because that’s not why Harry’s come home to him, now – for them _not_ to get it right.

But right now, all Nick wants to do is go to bed. He wants to go to bed with Harry, not just wake up in the middle of the night to Harry at the foot of his bed in a panic. He wants to already be there if – _when_ that happens again, and in the meantime, he wants to have Harry no more than an arm’s length away from him, real and breathing and beautiful and a bit weird and _Nick’s_ , right there where Nick can reach out and touch him to remind himself its real.

He tells Harry as much, and by the end, Harry’s got tears slipping down his cheeks. They’re not the sort Nick’s used to, though, because Harry’s smiling through it, and when Nick finally trails off, Harry wraps his arms around Nick’s middle, presses his wet face to his shirt.

“Okay,” he mumbles against Nick. “Let’s do that.”

-

Nick’s in the kitchenette at the studio one afternoon, loitering around after a meeting in an aimless sort of way. He’s only been back at work full time for a little while, now, and the indignity of having to sit through a numbers meeting after weeks of not has made him ornery and hungry at the same time, so he’s trying to decide if he wants to steal someone’s yoghurt in revenge, and if so, whose. He’s holding one of Fiona’s when his phone goes in his pocket, and he nearly drops the pot of yoghurt as he tries to fish it out.

Harry’s name is on the display, which immediately unnerves Nick. It’s just that Harry doesn’t really call – hasn’t once since everything happened, actually. He texts, if he needs anything, but that’s about it. The fact that he’s phoning now immediately sets off klaxons in Nick’s head.

“Hiya, love,” he says, trying to sound calmer than he feels.

It goes to shit, though, when he hears Harry croak out “Nick?” His voice is rough and wet – he’s crying.

“Haz,” he says gently. “What’s wrong?”

Harry’s breath is coming in short and panicky down the line, and it takes him several tries to get proper words out. “Can’t, like – could you. Um. Come? Please?” He makes a choking sound. “Need you to come home.”

“I’m on my way,” Nick says immediately, already halfway down the hall. He still has Fifi’s yoghurt in his hand, but bugger it; he can’t think of anything besides Harry. “I’m coming,” he repeats. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Just – bad,” Harry wheezes. “Really bad. Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Nick says, even though he’s already said so. “Quick as I can. Quicker, even. Talk to me, love.”

“Can’t,” Harry all but whimpers. “Sorry, can’t really…”

“It’s alright,” Nick says, trying to say calming. “Just try to breathe, yeah? In and out.”

Harry follows along with him as best he can as Nick makes his way out to the lobby, practically sprinting to catch a cab. He’s getting odd looks as he elbows his way into it and rattles off Harry’s address to the driver, but he doesn’t give a shit whatsoever. He’s focused like a laser on _Harry, Harry, Harry_.

“Sorry,” Harry says. He’s still not breathing properly, still crying.

“You’re alright,” Nick says. “You’re alright.”

The line goes dead, then, and Nick’s stomach nearly drops out, but then a text pings through. _sry im here just cant talk pls come home soon please plss_

A wave of agony washes over Nick, because Harry’s hurting and Nick’s not _there_ ; Harry wants him to be and he’s not there and it feels like the worst thing Nick’s ever done in his whole life.

But he can’t do anything to change it, so he just wills the cab to go faster, feeling every second of time stretch out impossibly long as they drive.

-

He nearly fumbles his key when he arrives at Harry’s house, his hands shaking almost too hard to get it in the lock at first, but gets through in the end.

The house is in order, but Nick heads straight for Harry’s bedroom. He’s not there, but his laptop is upended on the floor, and Nick’s heart stutters.

The door to the ensuite is open just a crack, and when Nick pushes it open, there’s Harry, curled up in a ball in the bathtub like he’s trying to make himself very small, face covered in tears and struggling to breathe.

“I’m here,” Nick says, immediately going to sit on the edge of the tub and drawing Harry against his shoulder. He doesn’t want to smother him, to get too close in case that makes it worst, but Harry curls into him immediately, tightening his fingers around the sleeve of Nick’s t-shirt as he shudders and lets out a wet sob.

Nick does his best to remember how he’s done this in the past, and the advice from the new therapist for when this happens – rubbing Harry’s back, counting off breaths, keeping his voice low and calm. It’s not the first time Harry’s panicked, of course, but this time it feels larger, somehow, rooted more firmly in something snarled-up and dangerous.

“What can I do?” Nick asks finally, when it’s clear his usual tricks are only barely working.

“Can–” Harry gets out, trying to inhale properly. “Niall, or like – Gemma…” He goes back to wheezing unevenly, hanging his head between the sharp hill of his knees, but Nick understands and dials Niall right away, the sound of his own thudding heart echoing in his ear no matter how hard he presses his phone against it. This is the worst panic attack Harry’s had, and it seems somehow worse in the light of day. There’s sun coming in through the window, actual birds chirping, and Nick can’t understand how all of that is still happening while Harry breaks into pieces in front of him.

Niall doesn’t answer; Nick swears under his breath, and it makes Harry look up sharply, his eyes wide and worried now on top of red from crying.

“No, it’s alright love,” Nick assures his, hanging up and calling again. It only rings out again, though, so Nick gives it up. He tries Gemma next, but she doesn’t answer either. Nick only calls once, because he doesn’t want to alarm her with multiple missed calls when she finally looks at her phone.

“No luck,” he says as gently as he can. “Anyone else I can call?” He thinks, briefly, of Anne, but he doesn’t know if he can do that to her – show her just how badly her son is hurting.

“Louis,” Harry finally gasps out. His head goes back between his knees, and Nick rubs his back while he makes the call.

“Grimmy?” Louis asks when he answers. He sounds confused, and Nick is surprised like he always is to hear how delicate Louis’ voice is after not hearing it for a while.

“Yeah, hi,” Nick says. “Er, listen, are you busy?”

“No,” Louis asks warily. “Why?”

“Harry,” Nick says, glancing down at him still sitting in the bathtub. His shoulders are shaking as he either cries or hyperventilates, maybe both. “He’s… he’s not feeling well, and he wanted to speak with you.” Nick’s not sure how much he should say to prepare Louis – he doesn’t want to talk about Harry in front of him like he’s not there, though.

“Oh,” Louis says, and his voice is instantaneously different, full of focus and fierce concern. Nick and Louis might never have been best mates, but he’s always had more than a bit of respect for how tenaciously Louis loves his chosen circle. “Is he alright?” He sounds like he already knows the answer, though, despite asking.

“I think… no, probably not,” Nick admits. “Can I give the phone over to him?”

“Of course,” Louis says, his tone implying the Nick’s not doing it nearly quick enough.

“Haz, love,” Nick says soothingly, putting his mouth nearer to Harry’s ear. “Louis is on the phone. Do you want to speak to him? Do you think you can tell him what’s wrong?”

Harry lifts his head up again. He looks less wild, but his face is still white as a sheet, lower lip bitten up. His breath is too shallow, but better than it was, at least.

“You don’t even have to talk,” Nick promises, hoping Louis is catching this too. “You can just put the phone by your ear and listen, yeah?”

Harry nods slowly, and uncurls enough for Nick to hand him the phone.

He takes it, putting it cautiously to his ear, and after a long moment croaks out “Hi.”

Nick lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“I’m going to be right outside the door, alright?” Nick says, standing up from the edge of the tub. “If you need anything, just call, I’ll hear.” He leans in to press a kiss to the sweaty tangle of Harry’s hair; for just an instant, Harry’s hand darts out, grasping Nick’s with a strength that surprises him. Then he lets go, turns his face up at Nick and tries to smile; Nick smiles back, as gently and reassuringly as he can, and then leaves him to it, shutting the door to the ensuite and sitting down just outside it, his back against the wall just like he’d sat back in Holmes Chapel that first day, listening while Harry debated bath bombs.

-

He doesn’t know how long he’s there, but eventually the bathroom door creaks open, and Harry emerges. He’s rubbing his eyes, but he looks steadier – shaky, still, but steadier.

“Lou wants to talk to you,” Harry says, handing Nick’s phone over. “Um. I’m going to…” He points over at bed, and Nick nods, putting a hand on the small of Harry’s back and guiding him over to it. He folds himself down, looking very small, and pulls the duvet tight around himself. Nick’s heart is constricting; he doesn’t want to go anywhere, but he probably needs to talk to Louis too.

“I’m going to speak with him just for a second,” he promises, leaning down and kissing Harry’s forehead as gently as he can. “I’ll just be in the hall, and then I’ll be right back, and you can shout if you need me, yeah?”

Harry nods shakily.

“Back so quick,” Nick promises, and then ducks into the hall, pressing his phone to his ear.

“Louis?” he asks.

“Yeah, hi,” Louis answers. His voice sounds about a thousand times more wrung out than it had when Nick first called.

“Do you know what happened?” Nick asks. “It’s not usually this bad.”

“He looked up the crash,” Louis finally says wearily. “On his computer. Like, pictures of the wreckage and shit.”

“Jesus,” Nick says, his stomach twisting miserably. “Why would he do that?”

“Dunno,” Louis says. “God, I don’t fucking know.” There’s a sharp hitch in his voice, and Nick’s sure he’s crying as well, or at least was a moment ago. Nick thinks he’s about a second from following, all things considered.

“It’s not fucking fair,” Louis whispers eventually. “He’s _alive_ , he went through all that shit and made it anyway and it still – why the fuck does it still get to hurt him? It’s not fair.”

“It’s not,” Nick parrots, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It’s not fair at all.” 

“I hate this,” Louis admits. “I don’t know how to help him. Either of them. _Fuck_.” There’s a heavy thunk, and Nick thinks he’s probably hurled something solid against a wall.

“He’s alive, though,” Nick says. He’s not sure whose benefit he’s saying it for, really, just that it needs to be said – against all reason, Harry’s here.

“I keep dreaming it’s a mistake,” Louis says. “That, like, I wake up one day and the bloody evening news is like, yeah, just kidding! They’re really dead, both of them, joke’s on you for thinking they weren’t.”

Nick doesn’t know what to say to that; _I know_ seems too hollow. He knows, though.

“Thank you,” he finally says. “For talking to him. He seems calmer. Gonna try and get him to eat in a bit, I think.”

“Good,” Louis says. “And fuck, of course. If he needs me, I’ll – anything, yeah? Whenever. I can speak to him, or… or come down… whatever he needs. Just call.”

“I will,” Nick promises, and a moment later they ring off.

Back in the bedroom, Harry’s gotten himself even further under the duvet so that his face is the only thing peering out from the top, just barely visible.

“Hi, love,” Nick says quietly. He pauses at the edge of the bed. “Can I come in?” He doesn’t want to presume – that’s what the new therapist keeps telling him. To ask Harry how he can be there, how he can help; to offer things, if Harry can’t answer, and then listen to what he says. It’s a learning process, but he thinks they’re getting there, slowly but surely.

“Yeah,” Harry says quietly. Nick lifts the edge of the duvet and crawls in beside Harry, tucking him up against his chest. Harry likes this, Nick’s found – to be held very close when everything else is falling out from beneath him.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Nick asks. “It’s alright if you can’t, but I’ll listen.”

“Did Lou tell you?” Harry asks. His head is tucked up beneath Nick’s chin, and his hair is tickling him. It’s starting to grow out again.

“He said you saw some pictures on the internet,” Nick says. Harry nods morosely against him. “Hazza, love, why would you look at those?”

Harry lets out a weak, frustrated noise. “I dunno,” he says. “It was stupid.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Nick says. It’s not, even – he understands the temptation. To need to see. He’s never looked, himself, but he knows the pictures exist. He hopes he never sees them, not ever. “But it can’t have made you feel very good.”

Harry makes a noise that’s almost laughter, twisted around awfully. “Just needed to see, I guess. I – I dunno. Fuck. I dunno why I’m not dead, Nick. Why aren’t I dead?”

Nick’s heart skips unsteadily. “I dunno, love,” he admits. “I dunno. But I’m so fucking glad you aren’t.”

Harry just murmurs, burrowing in deeper to Nick’s chest.

“I am,” Nick continues, because he wants to be very clear on this. “Me, and your boys, and your family, and about a million other people, no exaggeration. We’re all so fucking glad you’re alive.”

Harry tilts his head back, then, looks at Nick very seriously. “Am I ever going to be better?”

“You’re already getting better,” Nick says. “We went to the market on the weekend, yeah? And you didn’t have a panic attack, did you?”

“No,” Harry grudgingly admits. It had been a big event, honestly, silly though it might sound; leaving the house has been hard on Harry, not least of all because of how many people want to _see_ him, how many people are clamoring to get a glimpse of the boy who died and came back to life. If the paps were bad before, they’re even worse now, and it’s a lot for Harry to deal with. The new injunction helps, but it isn’t perfect, so they plan their outings out of the house very carefully, now.

“So you’re already doing great,” Nick says. He means it, too – he’s so bloody proud of his boy.

“Great,” Harry parrots back, disbelievingly. “Doing so well I have to pull my boyfriend out of work and bother everyone over the phone. Definitely feels great.”

This is the worst of it, now – how he’s convinced he’s a burden to everyone else. He’s better at admitting it when he’s not feeling well, but lately that’s just mutated into a conviction that he’s more trouble than he’s worth if he can’t be the Harry Styles he used to be.

“Stop that,” Nick says gently. “I _want_ you to call me when you need me to come home. That’s _good_ , love, that’s _brilliant_. I’m here because I want to be, and so is everyone else who loves you. D’you know what Louis said to me? That he’ll be here in a heartbeat, if you need him to be. And, like, does Louis Tomlinson say anything he doesn’t mean?”

“No,” Harry admits.

“And have you driven me off yet?” Nick asks.

“No.”

“Right. ‘Cos none of us are fucking going anywhere. You’re not a _burden_ , and you’re not a _bother_. We love you. That’s what love is, innit? Not going anywhere.”

Harry tilts his head up at him again. He looks… slightly less disbelieving, at least. The furrowed line is still lodged solidly between his eyebrows, and Nick can see him chewing the inside of his cheek, but after a moment he breathes out, relaxes, and presses a kiss against Nick’s collarbone. He doesn’t say anything, but Nick thinks that’s alright – he thinks Harry understands anyway.

The therapist has said over and over that it’s going to be a lot of repetition – of Harry taking a step backwards when he takes one forward, of Nick having to tell Harry that it’s alright _not_ to be alright, that they’ll both have lots of days when it’s hard for every day when it’s less hard. That’s alright, though. Because what’s at the heart of all that is that Harry’s alive, and that Nick loves him, and that Harry loves him back, and they rest they’ll take in turn, as best they can. There’s not really another option, not when you’ve been given a second chance like this.

Eventually, Nick sits up a bit, pulling Harry with him. “Hey,” he asks. “D’you want sandwiches for tea?”

Harry takes several long, steadying breaths, but then looks at Nick. His face is a bit less taught. “What kind?” he asks.

“Whatever sort you want,” Nick says. As he gets out of bed he presses a kiss to Harry’s knuckles, and Harry smiles, just a bit, just for an instant. “Daisy gave us some of that posh jam she made, d’you fancy that?”

Harry nods slowly. “Yeah, alright. That sounds good.”

“Jam it is, then,” Nick says, offering his hand to Harry to help him up. “C’mon.”


End file.
